A Church 



AND 



Her Martyrs. 



BY THE^/ 

REV. DANIEL VAN PELT. 



OF CO Nq . 

FFR 21 1 R89 ' 



WGT<** J7 



"Remember the days of old, consider the years of many 
generations." — Deut. xxxii. 7. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK, 

No. 1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 



£ LIBRARY 
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COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 

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PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK. 



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Stereotypers and fflectrotypers, Philada. 



PREFACE. 



The writing of these pages has been a labor of 
love. It was a constant reminder of a delightful 
summer trip abroad — made thus delightful espe- 
cially because it was pursued in no idle, aimless 
way, but with the purpose of looking upon scenes 
previously familiar by reason of favorite historic 
studies. It is not claimed that the result of these 
studies and visits is an exhaustive treatise : the 
author has attempted merely to render the history 
he has presented attractive to the popular mind, 
stimulating to further and more profound study 
(in this or any other kindred direction) rather than 
furnishing the means for it. But even if this vol- 
ume should lead to no subsequent researches, the 
author humbly trusts that a sufficiently correct and 
comprehensive view of the Church under discussion 
will still be in possession of the reader who has 
carefully perused these pages. 

3 



4 



PREFACE. 



It will not be necessary to indicate here the 
authorities which have been consulted, as justice 
is done to them in notes ; but a word or two may 
be said in regard to the Groot Martelaarsboek. 
This work is a compilation which was first issued 
in the eighteenth century, and which has been edited 
and re-edited several times since. The above name 
(" Great Martyr's-Book ") is not its full, nor even 
its correct, title, but it is popularly known by this, 
and for convenience in an English book it has 
been thus referred to throughout these pages. Its 
record really embraces all the martyrs of the Chris- 
tian Church from the Crucifixion down, so that the 
Dutch martyrology had to be gotten from it by a 
process of sifting. Occasionally, too, the historian 
Brandt furnishes the account of a martyrdom which 
has escaped the " Martyr's-Book." 

May the great Head of the Church, whose blood 
first fell that we might live, own this modest attempt 
to glorify his name and his faithfulness, and make 
it instrumental to the edification and encouragement 
of many a Christian heart ! 

d. y. p. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., Nov. 2, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

PAGE 

Martyrs of the Church. — Protestant Martyrs. — What va- 
rious Denominations owe to Holland. — Manner of 
Treatment 9 



PART I. 

THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 

CHAPTER I. 
Cologne ; or, The Reign of the Romish Church in Hol- 



land 25 

CHAPTER II. 

Heidelberg ; or, The Rise of the Reformed Church ... 35 
I. The University and the Castle ...... ,35 

II. Frederick the Pious and the Catechism .... 44 

CHAPTER III. 

Wesel ; or, The Organization of the Reformed Church of 

Holland 56 

I. The Political Situation 56 

II. The Early Synods 67 



6 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

PAGE 

Leyden; or, The Place of Learning in the Dutch Church . 75 

I. The Siege, and its Reward 75 

II. The Universities of Holland 82 

CHAPTER V. 

Dordrecht ; or, The Great Synod 92 

I. Preliminary Events 92 

II. The Synod in Session 98 

III. Adjournment 104 

CHAPTER VI. 

Flushing; or, Parent and Daughter Churches ...... 112 

I. The First English Pastor 112 

II. The Reformed Church in America 120 

CHAPTER VII. 
Kampen ; or, the Protest against State-Churchism .... 130 



PAET II. 

MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 
CHAPTER I. 

The Inquisition in the Netherlands 145 

CHAPTER II. 
The First Martyrs of the Reformation ......... 153 



CHAPTER III. 
Henry of Zutphen 



161 



CONTENTS. 7 
CHAPTER IV. 

PAGE 

John Pistorius : His Life and Labors 169 

CHAPTER V. 
John Pistorius : His Death 177 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Widow Wendelmoet Klaasdochter 185 

CHAPTER VII. 
William of Zwolle 191 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Teunis Teeksen of Naarden 200 

CHAPTER IX. 
J oriaan Ketel ; or, The Anabaptist Martyrs 209 

CHAPTER X. 
Angelus Merula, the Benevolent Priest 219 

CHAPTER XI. 
Angelus Merula : His First Sentence 228 

CHAPTER XII. 
Angelus Merula : His Death 238 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Herman Jansen of Amsterdam 248 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 

John de Graef : Imprisoned at Hulst 258 

CHAPTEE XV. 
John de Graef : Trial and Execution 267 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Heynzoon Adriaans of Haarlem 276 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Martyrdoms in Southern Holland . „ 285 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Martyrdoms in Southern Holland. — Continued 295 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Herman Schinkel of Delft 304 

CHAPTER XX. 
Four Converted Priests . 313 

CHAPTER XXL 
The Last Martyrs. — Conclusion 321 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 

MARTYRS OF THE CHURCH.— PROTESTANT MAR- 
TYRS,— WHA T VA RIO US DENOMINA TIONS 
OWE TO HOLLAND.— MANNER OF TREAT- 
MENT. 

STEPHEN, stoned to death in the presence of 
the persecutor Saul, was the first martyr of the 
Christian Church. All sects and all divisions of 
Christendom together revere his memory as the 
earliest of that noble army who have laid down 
their lives for the faith of the gospel, and whose 
blood has become " the seed of the Church." 

Again, all those heroes and heroines of the faith 
who fell during what are called the " Ten Persecu- 
tions," under the Roman emperors, are claimed by 
the whole Church of Christ — East and West, 
Roman Catholic and Protestant, alike — as her own, 
and she honors them as her progenitors. 

Hitherto the martyrs of the Lord Jesus Christ 
had been put to death for confessing their faith in 
him in the face of a deadly hostility to his religion 
on the part of the secular power of paganism. It 

9 



10 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



was the world against Christ — the Roman empire 
against the Church. A time arrived, however, when 
the Church became as a house divided against itself 
— when, armed with secular power herself or con- 
trolling the secular arm of the nations according to 
her will, she proceeded to exterminate those within 
her bosom who dissented from her doctrines or 
practices ; and therefore there naturally arose a dif- 
ference in the estimate of martyrdom, the papal 
Church denouncing as heretics those whom the 
Protestant world to-day honors as martyrs. Such 
were the thousands who fell during the Middle Ages 
among the Waldenses in Italy and the Albigenses 
in Southern France. 

When the Reformation of the sixteenth century 
swept through the ancient Catholic Church, the or- 
dained authorities of that body, true to their medi- 
aeval policy of persecution, and disdaining to argue 
or unable to do so, undertook to suppress by fire 
and by sword the new life of a more spiritual and a 
purer faith and worship. Another age of martyr- 
dom, therefore, fell upon the Church, recognized as 
such only by that branch of it which adopted the 
faith and the principles of the Reformation. 

Now, further, there is to be noted another cir- 
cumstance in regard to the army of martyrs. Prot- 
estantism realized different doctrinal or ecclesias- 
tical developments in almost every country where 
it attained predominance. These were determined 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 11 



partly by the divisions among Protestant Christians 
upon the sacramental question (as will be shown in 
Part L, Chapter II.), and partly by the different 
political circumstances in the various countries. 
Thus it grew to be convenient, for historical pur- 
poses, to speak of the Church of England or of 
Scotland or of France or of Holland, and in many 
instances these were the names officially assumed 
by the Protestant organizations in these lands. In 
each of these countries, too, while the Reformed were 
passing through their seasons of feebleness and strug- 
gle, the foundations of these national communions 
were watered by the blood of men and women wit- 
nessing unto death to the sincerity of their faith and 
their love of the truth. Hence for every National 
Church there came to be a roll of martyrs peculiarly 
cherished and honored by its people. 

It is now readily seen what is meant by speaking 
of " a Church and her Martyrs." It is proposed in 
the following pages to present a brief review of the 
rise and progress of the Protestant — i. e., the Re- 
formed — Church in those Netherland provinces 
which constituted at one time the Dutch republic, 
and which now compose the kingdom of Holland. 
As England points with a holy pride to that 
Book of Martyrs which recites the virtues and the 
sufferings of the saints who died at Smithfield and 
elsewhere throughout the realm, while Scotland 
dwells with fond memories upon her array of 



12 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



" Worthies " who died for the faith, we deem it 
not amiss to pay our feeble tribute to those few of 
the martyrs of Holland whose names have escaped 
oblivion, being emboldened and encouraged to this 
task because it has not heretofore been attempted in 
the English language. 

We offer no apology for bringing to the attention 
of American readers a survey of ecclesiastical events 
in a country so distant and so small as Holland. 
American Christians, we may well take it for 
granted, are interested in every phase of church- 
life or denominational existence within the bounds 
of our republic, and they must be aware that a con- 
siderable number of their brethren in Christ consti- 
tute two denominations, known, respectively, by 
the name of " The Reformed Church in the United 
States " and " The Reformed Church in America." 
Both of them retain the names of church courts, 
the methods of constituting the same and the distri- 
bution of authority among them which distinguish 
the Church of Holland. The former cherishes one, 
at least, of the symbolic books of the Holland 
Church ; the other, all of the confessions and doc- 
trinal standards (without exception or addition) of 
the Church in the Fatherland. Both of these de- 
nominations, again, owe their very existence in this 
country to the fostering care and diligent guidance 
of one of the ecclesiastical judicatories of the Trans- 
atlantic Church — the Classis of Amsterdam — in the 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 13 



early days of the settlement of these United States. 
This we might have expected to be true in regard 
to the " Reformed Church in America/' popularly 
known as " The Dutch Reformed Church," because 
it was established originally among the settlers or 
colonists from Holland itself. But the German 
denomination, or " The Reformed Church in the 
United States," is no less indebted to the Amster- 
dam Classis. Her earliest ministers were sent out 
under its auspices, were subject to its jurisdiction, 
and were aided in the organization and building of 
churches by money liberally contributed by its rec- 
ommendation and under its direction. The first 
body among the German settlers that possessed any- 
thing like the powers of an independent church 
court — designated the Coetus — was created by the 
sanction of this same Classis even before a similar 
privilege w T as granted to the Dutch congregations in 
America. 1 

Indeed, if we may be permitted a short digression 
here, an inquiry as to what various great Protestant 
denominations, either in this country or in Great 
Britain, owe to Holland will bring out a number 
of facts of curious interest. The story of John Rob- 
inson, the father and founder of Congregationalism, 
is a familiar one. His " poor people " in Notting- 
hamshire, who had resolved, " as the Lord's free 

1 See Historic Manual of the Reformed Church in the United 
States, by J. H. Dubbs, D. D., Part II. 



14 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



people, to join themselves by a covenant into a 
Church estate in the fellowship of the gospel," re- 
jecting prelacy and the dictation of kings in matters 
of belief and worship, were consequently thoroughly 
dragooned at the instance of the prelates and the 
king of England. Pillaged, persecuted, banished, 
they sought refuge in Holland, " where, they heard, 
was freedom of religion for all men." For seven- 
teen years Robinson lived and labored in this safe 
asylum, teaching and elaborating the principles of 
Congregationalism, which otherwise would have been 
crushed in the land where it now has an honored 
home. But from Holland, too, went forth the Amer- 
ican branch of the Congregational Church which 
looks to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on 
Plymouth Rock as the beginning of its existence. 

The history of the great Baptist denomination in 
many ways comes into connection with Holland. 
That sad and disgraceful outbreak of iniquity and 
superstition of which the sect of the " Anabap- 
tists" became guilty in the sixteenth century was 
identified with two men of Holland who reigned as 
so-called kings in the city of Minister, in Germany. 
But, on the other hand, it was owing to the teachings 
and labors and sacrifices of another Hollander, Men- 
no Simons, that the Anabaptist doctrines became pu- 
rified or, rather, that the evil practices formerly iden- 
tified with these doctrines were repudiated by those 
who still held to the necessity of rebaptism or im- 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



15 



mersion. Thus, through him, the Baptists obtained 
recognition as one of the sects of evangelical 
Christendom. To Holland, again, the Methodists 
must look for the one who first formulated the 
distinctive doctrines of grace of which they are 
proud to be known as the zealous adherents and 
propagators. When, under the Wesleys, the great 
work of awakening deistic England had been ac- 
complished, and the time had come for a crystalliza- 
tion of thought and principles, the Arminian the- 
ology was that toward which John Wesley felt at- 
tracted, and which he wished it to be understood 
Methodism was prepared to uphold and proclaim. 
But, more than a hundred years before, Jacob Heer- 
mans — known in the learned world as Arminius — 
a native of Holland and professor of theology at 
Leyden, had taught and defended these distinctive 
doctrines in opposition to an ultra-Calvinism, arous- 
ing the famous controversy that culminated in the 
great Synod of Dort. 1 

Nor are there lacking many evidences of pleas- 
ant and profitable relations between the Presby- 
terian Church and Holland. Before ever the Pil- 
grim Fathers came to dwell in Leyden, Presbyterians 
from England and Scotland had experienced a cor- 
dial and handsome welcome in this classic city. 
" Another English church in Leyden was that of 
the Presbyterians. When the Pilgrims came to 
1 See Part I., Chapter V. 



16 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Leyden, Robert Durie was the pastor. The magis- 
trates gave them the use of the church of the hos- 
pital of St. Catherine during specified hours of the 
day, the pastor's salary being paid out of the city 
treasury. As the congregation increased in num- 
bers the church of the Beguins was assigned to them. 
This was probably the building about which Mrs. 
John Adams wrote from Leyden on Sept. 12, 1786, 
thinking it was the scene of Robinson's ministerial 
labors. In 1761 the magistrates resolved that on the 
death of the then pastor, William Mitchell, the con- 
gregation should be disbanded. He died in 1807, aged 
eighty-one years. The edifice was transformed into 
an anatomical cabinet and university library." 1 Pres- 
byterian churches supplied with pastors direct from 
Scotland were also to be found in other cities of 
Holland, and, as we shall see, 2 one of these pastors 
became the first English minister in the Dutch Re- 
formed Church of New York City. Again, there 
appears a passage in Dr. Wm. M. Taylor's recent 
volume, where he has occasion to mention "the 
influence of that close intercourse between the 
Church of Scotland and the Church of Holland 
which was maintained before, during and for some 
little time after the era of the persecution." 3 The 

1 Paper on " The Founder of Congregationalism/' by Kev. 
M. O. Hansen, in Southern Presbyterian Review. 

2 Part I., Chapter VI. 

3 The Scottish Pulpit, New York, 1887, p. 161. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



17 



persecution here referred to is that under Charles II. 
and James II. in their endeavors to force episco- 
pacy on Scotland. Holland then once more became 
the refuge of oppressed consciences from Great Brit- 
ain, and now it was the Presbyterian Church which 
became indebted to the little republic. Most curi- 
ous it is to note how this matter of asylum — one 
of the chief glories of Holland — was made into a 
reproach by Englishmen of the stamp of Samuel 
Johnson and others, intense Tories and bitter oppo- 
nents of all that was liberal in politics or in religion. 
Johnson's indignation broke forth into the tirade, 
" Ye Dutch, come out of your hodge-podge ! The 
great mingle-mangle of a religion among you hath 
caused the churches of Christ to increase so little with 
you, standing at a stay like corn among weeds !" 
Then another (Andrew Marvell) indulged in a poet- 
ical effusion to the same effect : 

"Sure, when religion did itself embark, 
And from the East would westward steer its bark, 
It stuck ; and, splitting on this unknown ground, 
Each one then pillaged the first piece he found. 
Hence, Amsterdam Turk, Christian, pagan, Jew, 
Staple of sects and mint of schisms, grew — 
That bank of conscience where not one strange 
Opinion but finds credit and exchange. 
In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear : 
The universal Church is only there." 

Much more direct and close, of course, than 
2 



18 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



the connection traced between Holland and these 
various denominations in our country is that sub- 
sisting between the Dutch Reformed Church in 
America and the Church of Holland. This will 
be pointed out in the sixth chapter of Part I. 

But, apart from these points of contact with 
matters of local interest to us in this republic, we 
may assume that the Christian reader will turn 
with ever-fresh delight to the evidences of God's 
covenant faithfulness to God's own Zion, in whatever 
direction these may be found. In every country 
where Protestantism grew to predominance we see 
repeated the struggles of the primitive Church 
toward an organized existence in the face of the 
fearful odds against it presented by the surrounding 
paganism and imperialism. In every such instance 
there were the same feebleness and suffering, the 
same inevitable lack of organic system at the first, 
while the persecutions compelled the people of God 
to remain as " a nation scattered and peeled." But 
every national Protestant Church, too, in the very 
midst of the death-struggle, secured to itself more 
and more of organic form, and, gaining strength 
and stability through organization, stood forth at 
last " fair as the moon, clear as the sun and ter- 
rible as an army with banners," just as " the union 
and discipline of the Christian republic," according 
to Gibbon, " gradually formed an independent and 
increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire." 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 19 



It will be our endeavor to show how this process 
of churchly growth and consolidation went on upon 
the soil of Holland, the story of whose contempo- 
raneous political struggle has been so brilliantly told 
by an American. But our picture will not be com- 
plete unless we extend the view of ecclesiastical events 
beyond the period when the Church of Holland had 
barely escaped from repressing perils. We need to 
observe how the spiritual forces fostered by adver- 
sity prevailed to carry her onward to her highest 
triumphs. Yes, and it will, we doubt not, be espe- 
cially impressive to note how truly her vitality then 
gained sufficed to maintain within her borders a 
life of godliness and a loyalty to the truth which 
enabled her not only to survive seasons of sad 
decline, but to cope successfully, even in our own 
days, with the deadening and undermining influ- 
ences of a latitudinarian State-Churchism. Hence 
our review of the Church of Holland, as will be 
seen, will not only include the period before the 
Reformation and that of the Reformation itself, 
with its array of martyrs who fell on Dutch soil, 
but will be extended to a brief touch upon events 
of the present time. 1 

A last word must be given to explain the man- 
ner of treatment. Impressed with the striking in- 
terest and deep instructiveness of the history in the 
Fatherland of that Church which it is our privilege 

1 Part L, Chapter VII. 



20 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to serve as one of her ministers, it had been with us 
the hope and desire of years to visit the scenes made 
memorable by this history. To the Christian the 
reading of history is the reading of God's hand- 
writing. Where, then, the imprint of his finger is 
upon the very earth and sky, upon the streets of 
cities, upon hills and valleys and rivers, there, surely, 
may we draw near to God himself and lose ourselves 
in devout reveries about his great doings in the past. 
Our long-cherished desire was gratified a year or two 
ago : we visited Europe, and our course of travel 
was entirely determined by the purpose to look 
upon the places where transpired important events 
in the history of the Church of Holland. With 
very few exceptions we traversed the streets of the 
towns of which the various martyrs were natives or 
where they suffered for the faith. Indeed, as will 
be seen, we enjoyed the sad privilege of standing 
withing the very prison-cells where some of them 
awaited their doom. 

Now, if, as some one has said, history is philos- 
ophy teaching by examples, it may likewise be 
maintained that travel teaches history by living 
illustrations. Look upon the scene of an event, 
and its occurrences and details will be indelibly im- 
printed upon the memory. Having visited a num- 
ber of cities in Germany and Holland, we found 
ourselves traveling in mind from one period to an- 
other in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church. 



INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



21 



We propose to present our historical survey in a 
manner approaching as nearly as possible this vivid 
method of studying history which occupied us while 
abroad — that is, we propose to invite the reader to 
allow his imagination to follow us to several cities 
each of which stands related to some prominent 
principle, period or event in the history of the 
Church of Holland. As we come to each of these 
and ask after its place in history we shall naturally 
come upon that which it will be important for us 
to consider, until we have presented succinctly 
and in order the several periods from the earliest 
times to the present. Having thus viewed the 
Church in her rise and progress, we shall proceed 
to consider the story of her martyrs* 



PAET I. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 



COLOGNE; OR, THE REIGN OF THE ROMISH 
CHURCH IN HOLLAND. 

IT is a thing never to be forgotten to have stood 
before the cathedral of Cologne awed and hushed 
to speechless admiration by its overwhelming grand- 
eur. Approach it from whatever side you please, let 
your point of observation be what it will, whether far 
or near, look upon it from the farther bank of the 
broad and rushing Rhine, gaze up at it from the foot of 
the hill at its rear or from the wide square to the south 
of it, — it rises upon the vision with a constant surprise, 
it electrifies the beholder with thoughts of amazing 
magnitude and splendid beauty and inexpressible 
grace. We do not ask after dimensions : it grates 
unpleasantly upon the ears to be told that these 
towers attain a height of five hundred and twenty- 
two feet, and that this measurement agrees exactly 
with that of the length of the church. It is suffi- 
cient to stand there and be left to drink in to the full 
the sense of its magnificence and symmetry. We 
do not need to be told, even, that this is the most 
perfect specimen of Gothic architecture : we feel the 

25 



26 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



perfection of harmony, the perfection of beauty, the 
perfection of sublimity ; they speak too eloquently 
to our eyes to need the interpretation of language. 
The infinitely minute and the immensely great com- 
bine to do their several parts to produce a whole 
which excites and overpowers the mind, but which 
yet abundantly soothes and satisfies the fastidious 
taste. Wordsworth saw this building when it stood 
as yet miserably incomplete, compared with its pres- 
ent finished splendor, yet his Muse was fired to sing 
as follows : 

"Oh for the help of angels to complete 

This temple — angels governed by a plan 

Thus far pursued (how gloriously !) by man, 
Studious that He might not disdain the seat 
Who dwells in heaven ! But that aspiring heat 

Hath failed, and now, ye powers whose gorgeous wings 

And splendid aspect yon emblazonings 
But faintly picture, 'twere an office meet 

For you on those unfinished shafts to try 

The midnight virtues of your harmony." 

But it was not necessary for the angels to come down 
and do this : man pursued the glorious plan to its 
most glorious end ; and now this temple stands a 
hymn, a symphony, a veritable hallelujah-chorus, 
in stone. 

And there is a national significance connected with 
its completion. While Germany was still dismem- 
bered, disunited, a country composed of unadhesive 



THE CHURCH IN HOLLAND. 



27 



fragments, when it was torn asunder by the ambition 
of foreign potentates or crushed under the iron 
tread of French invasion, the great cathedral re- 
mained a fragment, incomplete, half beautiful and 
half dismal. It was such in 1824 ; in 1852 it began 
to assume proportions that promised better things, 
but even then the nave had not been carried above 
its aisles; as late as 1870, when Napoleon III. was 
defeated at Sedan, the towers were not half com- 
pleted ; but now a united Germany addressed itself 
to the noble task of placing in the sight of the world 
in perfected shape the most tremendous structure for 
the glory of God which its own native genius had 
ever dared to conceive or execute; and in 1880, six 
hundred and thirty-two years after the corner-stone 
was laid, an emperor of Germany was present to 
grace the ceremony of putting the topmost stone of 
the finial upon the south steeple. Then the work at 
last was done. 

What can compare with the sight of those twin- 
steeples ? Strassburg and Antwerp cathedrals each 
boast of but one splendid tower, their mates in either 
case still remaining unfinished, but in Cologne the 
design is complete even in this ambitious and dar- 
ing particular. The effect, too, is simply indescrib- 
able. Time and again we came to stand in front of 
these steeples, to gaze and feast upon the sight, and 
we could never get enough of it. Imagine five hun- 
dred feet of sheer height of masses of stone taper- 



28 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ing, towering upward in a perfect bewilderment of 
graceful beauty, each part fitting so harmoniously 
into the others, one form gliding so appropriately 
into another entirely different that the transitions 
were a surprise and pleasure combined. All the 
time the eye and the thought were going up, up, 
up, higher and higher, dizzier and dizzier, until 
the spires seemed at last suddenly to refuse the 
impossible ascent. Thus they stood pointing with 
unerring fingers to the space beyond, where they, 
indeed, might not go, but whither they bade the 
thinking soul continue its upward flight until the 
heavens should open and God himself be seen upon 
his throne. Surely, if this be the mission it was in- 
tended that the genius of Gothic architecture should 
perform, its purpose was here fulfilled : worship had 
here been directed into the very presence of God, 
there to receive its joy and its crown. 

But it becomes time that we inquire what Cologne 
or its cathedral has to do with the history of the 
Church of Holland. Looking back upon the ages 
before the Reformation, we perceive that all Christen- 
dom — or, say, all Europe — was divided into spiritual 
provinces as w T ell as into earthly kingdoms. The 
pope and other prelates of the Church of Rome 
were temporal princes. The first great subdivision 
of the viceregency of heaven — that is, the papal 
Church — was into archbishoprics, and these were 
again divided into bishoprics or dioceses. Now, the 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 29 



ancient city of Cologne was the capital of one of 
these archbishoprics, to which it also gave its name. 
It was divided into five bishoprics — that of Cologne 
itself, of Minister, of Osnabriick, of Liege and of 
Utrecht. Three of these dioceses lay entirely within 
German territory ; Liege included one or two Belgian 
provinces and two provinces, North Brabant and 
Limburg, now belonging to the kingdom of Holland ; 
while all the remaining provinces of the present 
kingdom (which were the same, also, that constituted 
the former republic) owed spiritual allegiance to 
the bishop of Utrecht. 

As, then, we stand lost in admiration before the 
cathedral at Cologne, or as we pass through its mag- 
nificent portals and penetrate the dim religious light 
of the interior, as we walk its pavement, looking — 
almost in vain — to see the lofty ceiling arching over 
our heads, hearing the music of its organs rolling 
like the melodies of a distant heaven along pillared 
aisles whose far perspectives refuse to yield themselves 
to the naked eye, — we may reflect that we are in a 
place once intimately associated with the land which 
was the original home of the Reformed Church in 
America. We are reminded that before the hand 
of Luther struck upon the church door at Witten- 
berg the blows which made papal and archiepiscopal 
sees totter on their century-old foundations, here 
was the religious capital of Holland, whence pro- 
ceeded the laws and the ordinances that governed her 



30 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



then visible Church to the remotest corner of her 
provinces ; and thus from beneath the shadows of 
this metropolitan temple we may well let the 
imagination travel back to these days of old 
and survey the condition of that earlier Church 
of Holland. 

When, on the night of the 31st of October, 1517, 
Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses against 
the cathedral doors of the little city of Wittenberg, 
the sparks from his hammer set on flame a fire that 
had long been smouldering in the heart of European 
society. There had been many " Reformers before 
the Reformation." There was John Wickliffe in 
England, who translated the Bible for the people 
five hundred years ago ; there were John Huss and 
Jerome of Prague, who died for the faith in Bohemia 
a hundred years before Luther's work began ; there 
was Savonarola in Italy, longing for a purified 
Church and burned at the stake for daring to do 
so. 

Holland was not behind these other countries in 
producing men who did not hesitate to speak their 
minds against some of the vital principles of papal 
superstition. Away back in the fourteenth century 
Gerhard Groote, a native of the city of Deventer, 
taught openly such startling truths as these : " Many 
listen to the mass who are in mortal sin ; for them 
the mass availeth not. He who dies in his sins 
perishes, though the Virgin and all the saints in- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 31 



terceded for him. To him who obeys eternal life 
can be promised, without purgatory." 1 He was 
silenced, indeed — that is, he was forbidden to preach 
in public — but his work went on in a more private 
way, and perhaps far more effectively, for he became 
the founder of a system of schools which diffused 
education widely among the common people of the 
Netherland provinces and reared more than one 
scholar of world-wide fame. And through this 
humble instrumentality pure evangelical teachings 
were also largely disseminated. 

In St. Martin's church, in the university town 
of Groningen, we stood before a very modest mural 
tablet marking the tomb of one who was called by 
admiring friends the " Light of the World." We 
read here that proud title — " Lux Mundi " — while 
a long inscription sets forth the glories of his learn- 
ing and the wide extent of his fame. No wonder 
that Groningen has thus honored his memory, for 
Wessel Gansvoort was born in that city, and of 
him Luther spoke in no measured terms of praise. 
Wessel, or Wesselus, died in 1489, or six years after 
Luther was born, yet he so strikingly anticipated 
the great Reformer in many of his teachings that 
the latter wrote, " If I had read his works before, 
my enemies might have supposed that I had learnt 
everything from Wesselus, such a perfect coincidence 

1 Rev. M. G. Hansen's Reformed Church in the Netherlands, 
p. 19. 



32 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



there is in our opinions." 1 In his works are found 
such teachings as these : " Our faith is in God, not 
in the Catholic Church, nor in the Latin council, 
nor in the pope. The pope might greatly err. 
Many popes have sadly erred." 2 He put all his 
trust, not in the Virgin Mary, but in Christ. " In 
the absence of repentance and conversion absolu- 
tion avails not, and where these exist absolution is 
superfluous." 3 But bolder things than even these 
are recorded of him. u He spake against the pope's 
indulgences," says Foxe, 4 "by occasion of which 
several of the pope's court, being persuaded by him, 
began to speak more freely against the matter than 
he himself had done. . . . Also, in some places in 
his writings he denies not 6 but that popes and their 
spiritual prelates, proceeding against Christ's doc- 
trine, are plain Antichrists.' " 

Such doctrines, openly avowed and taught in the 
days of Alva, a hundred years later, would have 
brought Wessel to the stake, yet in the Holland of 
his day a bishop of Utrecht befriended and protected 
the bold ante-Reformer, and he died a natural death 
at a good old age. This certainly is a significant 
circumstance. It speaks well for the scope which 

1 Foxe's Booh of Martyrs, edited by Kennedy, p. 98, note. 

2 Bev. M. G. Hansen, art. " Wessel Gansvoort," in Reformed 
Quarterly, April, 1881. 

3 Mr. Hansen, article cited supra. 

4 Foxe's Book of Martyrs, p. 98. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



33 



the soil of Holland afforded for the work of those 
who were preparing the world for the great relig- 
ious revolution of the next century. Among these 
laborers we must number another Hollander, Eras- 
mus, a native of Rotterdam. He was educated 
in the schools of the "Brethren of the Common 
Lot," founded by Gerhard Groote. He was a prod- 
uct of that encouragement of learning and bold- 
ness of thinking prevalent during the reign of the 
Roman Catholic Church in Holland, and, although 
not identifying himself with the adherents of the 
Reformation when the bugle-call to arms had been 
sounded by Luther, this world-famous scholar struck 
giant blows at the authority of Rome. 

While the archbishop of Cologne sat here upon 
his throne or administered the rites of religion with- 
in this head and centre, this crown and glory, of 
German architecture, while here he swayed his 
sceptre over the devotees of Rome throughout all 
the Dutch provinces; in spite of his authority, in 
defiance of his power, these thrilling sentiments 
of evangelical truth were being passed from mouth 
to mouth among their self-reliant, thoughtful, well- 
educated, independent people. It was the prepa- 
ration for great things to come. It laid the foun- 
dations deep and solid within the hearts of men of 
a superstructure more glorious than the material 
splendors of the cathedral that now adorns their 
former ecclesiastical capital. For here was to be 

3 



34 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



reared a Church of the Lord Jesus Christ composed 
of lively stones, adorned by a worship in spirit and 
in truth, ministered unto by a royal priesthood, and 
ruled over directly, though invisibly, by the chief 
Shepherd and Bishop of souls. 



CHAPTER II. 



HEIDELBERG; OB, THE BISE OF THE BE- 
FOBMED CHUBCH 

I. The Univeksity and the Castle. 

E leave Cologne and penetrate still farther into 
Germany. We sail up the Rhine through 
those very portions of its scenery which make it 
unrivaled among the celebrated rivers of the world. 
For a time after we pass Bonn, although the " Seven 
Mountains" have delighted our vision, we find 
nothing that has lessened our preference for the 
glorious Hudson, but with Ehrenbreitstein and 
Coblentz begin a prolonged series of such inex- 
pressible beauties and sublimities, such sweet charms 
of landscape and such wealth of historic associations, 
that for three or four hours of up-stream travel, all 
the way to Bingen, we are in a constantly-growing 
state of excitement and our vocabulary of admira- 
tion runs hopelessly dry, and then we reluctantly 
admit that the Hudson must yield the palm to 
" Father Rhine." 

We keep on far beyond, or above Bingen, until 
we arrive opposite the city of Mannheim. Here a 

35 




36 A CHUBCM ASB 



river comes flowing with considerable force and 
volume from the east, mingling its waters with those 
of the Rhine: it is the Xeokar River. We torn 
into it, proceed for a little distance up against its 
current, and after a few windings it brings us to a 
city on its southern bank. We disembark, and find 
ourselves in Heidelberg. 

The city of Heidelberg remains here as it has 
stood for seven or eight hundred years — that is. 
while it may have improved vastly in appearance 
and increased largely in extent and population, it 
has retained from remote centuries its " local hab- 
itation " and its "* name." This can hardly be 
afBrmed of its surrounding territories. Heidelberg 
is now accounted a part of the grand duchy of Ba- 
den, bat formerly it was the proud capital of the 
Palatinate, or Ptalz, a region extending along both 
sides of the Rhine and Xeckar rivers, and veritably 
a country abounding in corn and wine. The count 
Palatine of the Rhine was one of the seven electoral 
princes of Germany by whose vote the imperial 
throne was filled whenever a vacancy occurred in 
that exalted office. The fertility of these territories 
made their rulers wealthy : their electoral dignity 
raised them to a rank but little short of royalty; 
and thus, when the counts Palatine chose for their 
residence this beautiful spot upon the Xeekars 
banks and founded the city of Heidelberg, ^e need 
not be surprised that it became one of the most im- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



37 



portant cities of the land. The place to-day is 
famous for two things which have also most to do 
with the purpose of our present writing : these are 
the university and the castle. 

During the first week of August. 1886, great 
multitudes were gathered at Heidelberg from every 
portion of the civilized world. Festivities of every 
kind — banquets where two thousand guests at once 
sat down to the abundant cheer, processions in which 
many thousands more took part arrayed in the cos- 
tumes of days long past and representing pageants 
or living tableaux of great historic scenes — attested 
that an event of more than ordinary importance was 
being celebrated in this ancient city. It was, in 
fact, the celebration of the five hundredth anniver- 
sary of the founding of Heidelberg University by 
Rupert I., count Palatine of the Rhine. Five hun- 
dred years — 1386 to 1886 ! What multitudinous 
changes everywhere, what astounding discoveries, 
have been made within the interval ! What ad- 
vances then undreamed of have occurred in the knowl- 
edge of earth and sky — in science, learning, society, 
politics and religion — since this institution of learn- 
ing, the oldest of all the universities of Germany, 
began its honored career ! 

Going up the hill beyond the university build- 
ings, we begin the ascent of the mountain towering 
above the city at its eastern extremity. Halfway 
up, on a level higher than the roofs of its proudest 



38 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



cathedrals, we come upon the far-famed castle, and 
here abound memorials of the ages long gone by. 
Taking our stand in the centre of the spacious court- 
yard, we observe with wonder the imposing ruins 
that surround us on all sides. This is no castle in 
the ordinary sense of the word : it is, rather, a col- 
lection of royal residences, like the Alhambra in 
Spain. This courtyard is a quadrangle whose sides 
were palaces. Here many hands have built, suc- 
cessive princes adding still larger or still costlier 
piles to those bequeathed them by their predecessors. 
But all their pride of beauty, costliness and grand- 
eur has departed or lives but in splendid ruin. Lofty 
walls still rear themselves skyward, but vacancy is 
behind their staring windows. Tremendous towers 
still show something of their former strength, but 
some were blown to pieces by malicious foes, others 
stand blackened and roofless by the ravages of fire 
and of tempest. There is one ruin that presents a 
more remarkable appearance than all the rest, and 
we note it also particularly because of its historic 
association, as will appear later. " Between two 
plain gray Gothic towers, both striving upward," 
observes a recent writer, " there is unfolded to 
us a fa$ade of rich red stone, its quiet horizontal 
lines lying in gracefully-proportioned tiers, one 
above the other, while the perpendicular or wavy 
forms of statue and relief, of column and arabesque, 
cast in harmonious profusion over the stern archi- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



39 



tecture, transfigure it from ponderous stone into a 
living, breathing whole." But behind this elegant 
facade, with its spiral columns and sculptured por- 
tals, with its almost inordinate wealth of ornamen- 
tation, there are great gaping spaces where once 
there were halls and chambers fit to receive em- 
perors. Yawning depths look sheer up from the 
once- vaulted cellars to the open sky, without a single 
ceiling in all these successive stories, or a roof, to 
intercept the view. At another turn confronts us a 
palace where a pious descendant of this long line of 
princes sought to immortalize his illustrious ancestry 
by placing the statues of all of them along its walls. 
How rudely has the hand of time or of war or of 
the tempest dealt with these poor effigies ! Some 
are decapitated, others are severed in twain ; again, 
others are sadly lacking in one or another limb. 
Indeed, scarce one is left to maintain the dignity and 
the pride wherewith at first they were invested. 
This is the latest palace of them all, having been 
completed in 1608, while the first and oldest goes 
back to a period nearly four hundred years earlier, 
and looks down upon us with an antiquity of six or 
seven hundred years mellowing its hoary walls. 

Why should the princes of the Palatinate have 
chosen this spot to lavish here their wealth ? Why 
did they invite men of genius to construct here 
the finest triumphs of their taste and skill? Pass 
from the courtyard beneath yonder low arch- 



40 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



way to the broad esplanade in front of the most 
modern of these buildings, or climb the wind- 
ing stairs of the octagonal tower at the north-east 
corner of the ruins, and look out upon your sur- 
roundings. Eight beneath your feet nestles the city 
of Heidelberg close up against the mountain's base, 
and stretches its busy streets, adorned by many an- 
cient and stately edifices, along a plain that becomes 
ever wider as the hills recede from the river. Be- 
hind us the brow of the mountain towers high above 
our present elevated position, and from around its 
shoulder, on the east, the stream of the Neckar 
comes winding toward us. The river, as it passes 
the city, flows beneath two fine bridges, the upper 
one of stone and a hundred years old, the lower a 
modern structure of iron. At length its serpentine 
course is lost to view in the far west before we can 
see it meeting the Rhine. Opposite us a mountain 
still higher than the castled hill on which we stand 
rises abruptly from the Neckar's banks. But to our 
left, westward, both mountains descend rapidly to 
the plains below and leave open to the view a stretch 
of level country bounded only by the hills beyond 
the Rhine. The ancient builders of these ruined 
palaces knew what was grand and beautiful in 
nature as well as in architecture, and no more 
worthy site could have been selected for their mag- 
nificent creations. 

This, then, is a feeble attempt to depict Heidel- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



41 



berg, with its far-famed castle and university. 
Now, what is its bearing upon the history of the 
Church of Holland? This Church possesses a 
symbol, a book, an heirloom, of the faith of the 
fathers, which has instructed and preserved that 
of later generations. It goes by the name of The 
Heidelberg Catechism. We shall not look in vain 
for the connection between Heidelberg and the 
Church in the Fatherland if we study the history 
of the Catechism which here received its birth. 

The first impressions of the Reformation were 
brought to Heidelberg by no less a person than 
Martin Luther himself. In April, 1518, or less 
than six months after that memorable October 
night which is assigned as the date for the begin- 
ning of the Reformation, Luther arrived at this 
city, having journeyed from Wittenberg, for a great 
part of the way on foot. A General Chapter of the 
order of Augustinian monks was to be held at Heid- 
elberg, and Luther — a member of the order — whose 
bold deed had already won him fame, was strongly 
urged by the brethren to favor this meeting with 
his presence. His lodgings were assigned to him 
in a monastery of the order situated in the village 
of JSTeuenheim, on the banks of the Neckar, oppo- 
site the city. Luther bore with him a letter of 
introduction and commendation from his sovereign 
and patron, the elector of Saxony, to the elector 
Palatine, Louis the Pacific. He must, therefore, 



42 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



announce himself to the illustrious occupant of these 
imposing palaces. All but those of Otto Henry and 
Frederick IV. were then in existence, and Louis 
himself was a famous builder. 

We can readily trace Luther's footsteps as he 
proceeded to the castle. The village of Neuenheim 
lies a little below the modern iron bridge across 
the Neckar. There never was a bridge here until 
the present one was built, not many years ago. 
The upper bridge occupies the site of one or two 
previous bridges, and toward its predecessor, which 
then spanned the broad and rapid tide, Luther was 
fain to direct his way. Crossing the lower bridge, 
we walked along the same river-road which he 
must have followed on that April day long ago. 
As he emerged from a defile in the mountain where 
the monastery stood, back of the village, and put 
foot upon this river-road, his eye must at once have 
caught the noble proportions of the castle buildings, 
as we do to-day of their hardly less noble ruins. 
Continuing our walk opposite and past the city, the 
ruined magnificence grows upon the sight. Per- 
haps Luther, still more fascinated by the view of 
their undimmed glory, passed on beyond the bridge, 
and as we too go ever farther up the road along the 
river till far above the site of the castle, from what- 
ever point we observe them, the ruins have for us 
new surprises in the way both of their own solemn 
grandeur and of the delightsomeness of their loca- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 43 



tion. A wooden bridge then led across the river. 
It is not likely that the gate which admits us into 
the city at the farther extremity of the present one 
was the same beneath which Luther passed. At 
the castle the letter of the Saxon elector procured 
him a cordial and flattering welcome ; he was fre- 
quently invited to the table of the count palatine 
with other distinguished guests, and we have evi- 
dence that he enjoyed what he saw here. " We 
looked with delight/' he wrote, " upon all the 
splendors of the Palatine palace, admiring the 
adornments, the collections of armor — in short, 
all the remarkable objects which are to be found 
within this illustrious and truly regal castle." 1 

But Luther, while keenly enjoying these delights, 
had more serious business before him. When a 
person of learning, and especially a professor in a 
university, visited another university in those days, 
it was customary for the visitor to challenge the 
members of the latter to a public disputation upon 
certain theses or propositions submitted by himself. 
Luther, accordingly, took advantage of this custom 
to proclaim a pure gospel in Heidelberg during his 
stay. He invited a discussion upon a series of state- 
ments which he called Paradoxes. The first one 
read as follows : " The law of God is a saving doc- 
trine of life. Nevertheless, it cannot aid man in 
the attainment of righteousness : it much rather hin- 
1 D'Aubigne, Histoire de la Reformation, vol. i. p. 331. 



44 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ders him." Others were : " It is certain that man 
must needs utterly despair of himself in order to be 
made capable of receiving the grace of Christ. . . . 
Not he is justified who doeth many works, but he 
who without works hath much faith in Jesus Christ. 
. . . The law says, Do this ; and what it commands 
is never done. Grace says, Believe on such a One ; 
and, lo ! all things are already accomplished." 1 

To us, of course, these propositions are not at all 
paradoxical, because we are now so familiar with 
these doctrines of grace ; they were startlingly 
strange and novel, however, to the Roman Catholic 
theologians of Heidelberg University. And their 
drift was unmistakable. It was the preaching of 
the great foundation and corner-stone of the Ref- 
ormation, the doctrine of justification by faith. 
Luther triumphed over his disputants, and converts 
were won to his opinions. The Reformation had 
gained a foothold in Heidelberg. 

II. Frederick the Pious axd the Catechism. 

That splendid ruin already spoken of, so highly 
ornate, yet so elegant, with its profusely-decorated 
facade, is called the " Otto Henry " building. The 
count of that name reigned over the Palatinate from 
1556 to 1559. These three brief years were suffi- 
cient, however, for him to erect the most elaborate 
and sumptuous of all the castle-palaces. He was 
1 D'Aubigne, Hisioire de la Reformation, Vol. I. pp. 332, 333. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 45 



succeeded by his cousin, Frederick III., surnamed 
" the Pious." The latter' s grandson, Frederick IV., 
built the most recent of these structures — that with 
the ancestral statues. But Frederick the Pious did 
not add any new structures to the others, nor even 
embellish any of the old ; he was content to occu- 
py the beautiful palace bequeathed to him by Otto 
Henry. Meantime, his heart w T as set upon building 
of quite another kind — that of the Church of God. 
A fervent zeal for the Reformation possessed him, 
and to lay deep and firm a foundation of spiritual, 
evangelical knowledge in the hearts of his people he 
ordered the composition of a catechism. Why he 
desired such a catechism, why it was made to assume 
the character it did, are questions that lead us at 
once to an insight into the religious conditions of 
those times. 

Scarce had the deeply-furrowed field of European 
society been sown with the good seed of the king- 
dom, purified from the worthless chaff of supersti- 
tion and the noxious weeds of deadly errors, when 
the arch-enemy of souls came with the tares of dog- 
matic contention and disputatious bitterness. The 
Christ who had been preached in his divine simpli- 
city, and who had at first been thus savingly accepted, 
was now suddenly conceived to be divided — to mean 
one thing to one party, and something else to an- 
other. 

For what reason had the hearts of Protestant 



46 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Christians thus become divided? Because Luther 
felt constrained to interpret literally certain words 
of Jesus at the institution of the Lord's Supper. 
He had said, " This is my body." Luther insisted 
that Jesus meant to say that, after consecration, his 
real flesh and blood co-exist in and with the natural 
elements of bread and wine. To many this alleged 
effect of consecration, which was styled consubstan- 
tiation, seemed to differ but little from transubstan- 
tiation, and was regarded by them as a relic of 
Romanism. The Swiss Reformer Zwinglius, and 
Calvin with him, held that Jesus meant to convey 
no such literal idea about the sacrament. When 
he said, " This is my body" he spoke figuratively, 
as he did so often. The bread signified his body. 
Or, to go somewhat farther, the bread was his body 
symbolically, but not actually. No conciliation, 
however, could be effected upon this point. Upon 
this rock of mutual offence the Protestant Church 
split. Those who believed as Luther did, and 
who accepted confessions of faith or catechisms set- 
ting forth his view, naturally came to be named 
with his name, and are known as Lutherans to 
this day. 

And what of the others ? By w 7 hat name should 
they be distinguished from those who would no 
longer affiliate with them ? They did not possess 
one single leader after whom they might be called. 
Away back among the mountains of Switzerland, 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



47 



standing in their rugged and silent grandeur, deep 
down within her charming valleys, where broad, 
glassy lakes reflect the inaccessible snow-capped 
peaks far and near, a voice as of a mighty man had 
been heard to proclaim great things touching the 
truth of God. Into these mountain-fastnesses the 
fame of Luther did not penetrate till the year 1518. 
Two years at least before that, in 1516, Ulrich 
Zwinglius had begun to preach the truth of Christ 
in the face of Romish errors, and in a manner strik- 
ingly similar to that of Luther himself. It was 
the same Holy Spirit in both, rousing within them 
the conviction of a purer gospel. Thus, too, they 
labored and taught harmoniously after they became 
acquainted with each other's work. But upon the 
interpretation of the sacramental bread and wine the 
Swiss Reformer felt compelled to part company with 
Luther, and he necessarily became the champion or 
leader of an opposite tendency or party in the Prot- 
estant world. Yet was he not alone. Not long 
after the death of Zwinglius the celebrated John 
Calvin of Geneva published the first system of 
theology which Protestantism had produced. In 
this he did not support Luther's literal views of 
the body and blood of Christ in the communion, 
but neither was he so radical in his disavowal of 
those opinions as Zwinglius had been. He ascribed 
to the bread and the wine as much spiritual signif- 
icance and power as the words of Christ and the 



48 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



spirit of a reasonable gospel would allow. This 
book did not, indeed, compose differences, but it 
gave a solid ground for belief to those who could 
not follow Luther. Still, the question remained, 
What name would be appropriate to their party? 
The) 7 were not the adherents of one man the over- 
shadowing influence or power of whose personality 
would make them glad to call themselves after him ; 
they represented what might be called a tendency or 
spirit of religious thought rather than the fixed 
opinions of one individual. Accordingly, their 
choice happily fell upon a nobler and more com- 
prehensive designation. The name that became 
their proud distinction was simply that of "Re- 
formed" — truly a broad and catholic title, for all 
Protestant Christians, even the Lutherans, were 
Reformed. 

With these doctrinal divisions in the ranks of the 
Reformers, there soon also arose territorial distinc- 
tions, according as the princes of Germany sympa- 
thized with Luther or with the views of the Re- 
formed Church. A very small minority of these 
rulers, however, at any time cast in their lot with 
the latter ; for a long period only one among them 
stood forth from all the rest as the upholder of its 
doctrines. 

We have seen Luther at Heidelberg ; we have 
heard him propound and proclaim the vital doc- 
trines of salvation here. These seeds of truth were 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



49 



not scattered in vain, and it is to be noted that the 
truth he then taught was as yet untainted by 
the subsequent disputations that rent the Church 
asunder. It bore fruit in harmony with the purity 
and simplicity of the gospel thus preached. When 
the controversy at last broke out and called for the 
drawing of lines among Protestants, two successive 
electors — Frederick II. and Otto Henry — sided with 
the milder presentation of the sacramental doctrine 
put forth by Luther's friend and colleague Philip 
Melanchthon and encouraged the promulgation of 
his teachings within their territories. But when 
Frederick III. succeeded to the electorate of the 
Palatine, he went farther than the others in the 
direction away from Luther, and boldly avowed 
his sympathy with the Reformed. 

Frederick was, indeed, a remarkable prince. 
History bears this record of him : " He appears 
to have been in all respects what we may call a 
model prince, in whom the most excellent mental 
endowments were joined to the best qualities of 
the heart, and whose whole life was a commen- 
tary on his wisdom and virtue. His religious 
character in particular commanded the universal 
respect of his own age, as it has been the admi- 
ration of all later times. Piety with him was no 
empty sentiment or simply outward profession ; it 
formed the ruling power of his life, and, as has 
been well remarked, it took in the prince no less 
4 



50 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



than the man." 1 Dwelling in the sumptuous palace 
just fresh from the hands of his predecessor, Otto 
Henry, he thought not of the splendor that sur- 
rounded him, but only of the miserable ignorance 
of the people of his dominions regarding the truth 
of God. Sovereignty to him was a solemn respon- 
sibility laid upon him by God and rendering him 
accountable for the spiritual welfare of his subjects. 
" There is something beautiful, indeed, in the child- 
like simplicity with which he speaks of his princely 
office and trust in this view. For himself, at least, 
his work was theocratic in the best sense of the 
term. He was in his own eyes prince and ruler ' by 
the grace of God ' in order that he might lead his 
people in the way of righteousness and show him- 
self a true ' nursing father J to the Church." 2 This 
duty lay heavily upon his heart, and he sought 
anxiously after means to lead the masses to a saving 
knowledge of God. It became, therefore, his de- 
sire to disseminate the Reformed views among his 
people. But how shall this be done ? There were, 
to be sure, the Institutes of Calvin, but this work 
w T as utterly beyond the comprehension of the un- 
learned. Something popular was needed, something 
that should set forth the same grand truths of the 
Reformation, but so that he that runneth may read, 

1 " Historical Introduction," p. 20, of Tercentenary Edition of 
Heidelberg Catechism, 1863. 

2 Idem, p. 21. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 51 



and the wayfaring men, though fools — i. e. } simple 
and unlearned — shall not err therein ; something, in 
fact, that could go into the homes of peasants and 
princes alike, that would place words and thoughts 
at the disposal of men in such a way that in the 
field or market-place or castle or camp they might 
easily linger in the mind and produce sanctifying 
effects. This was the scope of the book of instruc- 
tion which formed the subject of the elector's pious 
ponderings. How was that noble but difficult ideal 
to be realized ? 

The castle and the university together combined 
to construct the much-desired document. What the 
castle conceived the university was destined to exe- 
cute. This ancient institution, founded in the Mid- 
dle Ages, while the papacy was still supreme, had 
not escaped the influences of the movements that 
had been going on in the world around it. It was 
now no longer devoted to the papal religion. The 
gospel as taught by that Augustinian monk who had 
once dared to dispute with its theologians had soon 
after become its gospel, and later Frederick the 
Pious had called to its halls professors holding the 
views of the Reformed. To one of these, Zacha- 
rias Ursinus, together with the court-preacher, Cas- 
par Olevianus, who had been professor there, the 
elector confided his wishes. He charged them, at 
the same time, with the composition of the book. 

The result of their joint-labors was the catechism 



52 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



that bears the name of Heidelberg, which is still 
honored as the sole symbol of the (German) Re- 
formed Church in the United States, which is one 
of the standards of the (Dutch) Reformed Church 
in America and in Holland, and which all the 
ministers of these communions are required by the 
general constitution of the Church, and by every 
individual call issued to them by congregations, to 
expound at stated intervals from the pulpit. This 
same catechism has also been cordially adopted as 
expressive of her faith by the Presbyterian Church 
in this country. We cannot descant at length upon 
its character or excellence. We briefly note tw 7 o 
points, however. One is that it proved to be all 
that the elector had contemplated. It was a com- 
plete exposition of the way of salvation, yet so plain 
that the unlearned could understand it with ease, so 
spiritual that the ripest Christian could rejoice and 
profit by its reading, so convenient for the memory 
that men could carry its words about with them in 
the busiest hours of life. Beginning with the close- 
ly-personal and deeply-searching question, "What 
is thine only comfort in life and death ?" so, through- 
out, the appeal is constantly to the necessity of per- 
sonal piety : " Whence knowest thou thy misery ?" — 
" What believest thou ?" — " How art thou righteous 
before God?" Further, when w r e read the answer 
to the first question (cited above) we touch upon the 
keynote of the entire book : " That I with body 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 53 



and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, 
but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, 
who with his precious blood hath fully satisfied for 
all my sins, and delivered me from all the power 
of the devil ; and so preserves me, that without 
the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can 
fall from my head ; yea, that all things must be 
subservient to my salvation. And, therefore, by 
his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal 
life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, 
henceforth, to live unto him." Following up this 
fundamental and richly experimental expression of 
the Christian's faith and hope, the book goes on by 
questions and answers to develop this confession, to 
exhibit the several grounds of truth whereupon it is 
based. Yet even here it remains experimental, set- 
ting forth doctrines not so much in the dry light of 
intellect as with the warm fervor of the actual Chris- 
tian experience of them. This has made the book 
the beloved companion of aged Christians as well 
as the textbook for children. This, too, disarmed 
opposition on account of doctrinal differences, and 
gave it a welcome reception among all phases of 
Christian belief. " It is one great merit of the 
Catechism that it is not offensively polemical or 
controversial in any direction. It is, of course, 
Protestant throughout, in opposition to Romanism, 
and Reformed, also, throughout, in opposition to 
Lutheran] sm ; and it was not possible, as the world 



54 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



then stood, that this opposition in both cases should 
not assert itself — indirectly, at least — in strong terms. 
But, looking at the matter now in the calm light 
of history, we have reason to be surprised, on the 
whole, that it is so free from provocation in this form. 
Even its antagonism to the Roman Catholic Church, 
if we except the unfortunate and somewhat apocry- 
phal appendix to the eightieth question, is managed 
in a general spirit of moderation which it was by 
no means easy to maintain in the middle of the six- 
teenth century." 1 

In the second place, we note the reception it met 
with throughout all the Protestant world. Soon 
after its publication, in 1563, thousands were read- 
ing it throughout Germany and in Holland, France, 
England, Scotland, Bohemia. It w T as a book for 
the people and the people hailed it, and hence it 
became powerfully instrumental in extending the 
Reformed Church, for by it not only were souls 
instructed in heavenly things and led to salvation, 
but it also conveyed in most acceptable form the 
doctrines of the Reformed Confession as opposed 
to Lutheran, Romish, Anabaptist or Socinian te- 
nets. Wherever it commended itself and its teach- 
ings w r ere accepted, there the Reformed doctrines, 
the Reformed Church, gained a foothold among 
men. Even in Germany that Church extended its 
sway. The elector of Brandenburg, the precursor 
1 " Historical Introduction," etc., p. 72. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 55 



of the kings of Prussia and of the present em- 
peror of Germany , threw open the doors of his 
dominions to the views which Luther could not 
endorse. But if in the land of Luther his name 
was too potent, and but few German principalities 
could refuse to remain Lutheran, the Reformed 
Church was widely extended through all the rest 
of Europe ; for when we read of Protestantism in 
many of these other countries, it exists there as the 
Reformed Church of Holland, of France, of Scot- 
land, of Switzerland, of Bohemia. 

Among the palaces surrounding the courtyard of 
Heidelberg Castle, there is none of all those that 
bear the names of princes which is inscribed with 
the name of Frederick III. ; but surely he reared 
for himself a more enduring monument when he 
caused to be written the Catechism of Heidelberg, 
for with it is to be for ever identified the rise of 
the Reformed Church. Thus the memories that 
cluster about this ancient city are intimately con- 
nected with the Reformed churches in the Father- 
land, and through them with many of us in this 
country. If we love the Reformed Church in this 
broad sense and take pride in its history, " Heidel- 
berg" is a sacred name to us; if we rejoice in the 
faith that our fathers held, and in which we have 
been instructed from earliest youth, Heidelberg is 
a place to which we shall eagerly direct our pil- 
grim steps. 



CHAPTER III. 



WESEL; OB, THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BE- 
FORMED CHUBCH OF HOLLAND. 

I. The Political Situation. 

E remain still in Germany. Leaving Heidel- 
berg, we follow the Neckar till it meets the 
Rhine. Soon after launching our imaginary bark 
upon the latter's rapid current we pass the city of 
Worms., where Luther spoke those memorable words, 
" Here I stand ; I can do no otherwise. So help me, 
God ! Amen." In one of the public squares may 
be seen a magnificent monument reared to the 
memory of Luther. On a lofty pedestal adorned 
with bas-reliefs and surrounded by allegorical fig- 
ures in a sitting posture stands the statue of the 
great Reformer, of colossal proportions, wrapped in 
his professorial gown and holding in his hands the 
Bible. No less than six statues of lesser size stand 
upon separate pedestals about this central piece, 
representing colaborers of Luther in his reforming 
work. 

After passing Worms we float again by fortified 

56 




THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 57 



cities and castled and vine-clad hills, through miles 
upon miles and hour after hour of the most ravish- 
ing scenery, till we see looming up in the distance 
once more the dizzy steeples and the grand propor- 
tions of the Cologne cathedral. 

Now the Rhine loses all its enchantment. It flows 
between flat banks ; castles, hills and beauteous 
cities or villages fail. Thus we reach Wesel. It 
lies, perhaps, a quarter of a mile away from the 
river, to the right, or east, of it. The still rapid 
waters do not rush along rocky shores that shoot 
sheer down to unknown depths below; they toy 
among shallows and dally in sandy holes and wind 
among unsightly flats on either bank. Lofty 
steeples, indeed, greet us from yonder little town, 
but they look out upon a wide expanse of almost 
level country, uninteresting and unattractive, except, 
perhaps, to the agriculturist. Wesel is no place that 
tourists stop at. It presents nothing of special re- 
nown ; it has no scenery to commend it, and the most 
enthusiastic lover of the Rhine would rather not see 
it here, after Bingen and the Lorelei Rocks and Co- 
blentz and the Seven Mountains. Why, then, did we 
go to Wesel ? One can hardly fail to be drawn along 
with the great stream of European travel to Cologne 
or Heidelberg. We might have gone to these places 
without the remotest reference to the historic memo- 
ries that there crowd upon the mind, but to Wesel 
we repaired only and entirely because of its histori- 



58 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



cal associations with the Reformed Church in Hol- 
land and America. 

In looking for evidences of the Church of God — 
the Church that is placed visibly upon the earth to 
accomplish God's purposes of salvation — the fact 
of organization is of supreme importance. This 
organization of the Church began when God called 
Abraham and his people and gave them forms of war- 
ship, and, above all, sacraments. So much import- 
ance attached to this fact of an organized existence 
that Jesus never cut himself loose from the Jewish 
Church, however degenerate it had become, however 
hostile to the real spirit of Judaism and to him, 
the incarnation of its spirit and the accomplishment 
of its purposes and promises. He attended to all 
its regulations ; and when John the Baptist objected 
to performing upon him the rite of baptism — not 
an obligatory ceremony, but one expressive of an 
advanced religious feeling — he said that it was neces- 
sary thus " to fulfill all righteousness." In the same 
way the disciples, even after Pentecost, did not 
rudely secede from the Jewish Church, but did their 
earlier work beneath the shadow of its organization. 
It was the principle of life overcoming that of death 
which finally caused the Christian Church to reach a 
development and an existence entirely apart from the 
Jewish, becoming in the stead of the other, and with 
her own forms and organization, the true visible 
Church of God upon the earth. So, at the advent 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 59 



of the Reformation, the visible Church was the 
Roman Catholic. Luther and his coadjutors had 
not at first the remotest idea of separating them- 
selves from its communion ; but when the corrupt 
Church would not be reformed and when she cast 
forth from her midst the advocates and adherents 
of a purer faith, then it behooved the latter to set 
about establishing the marks of a visible Church 
among themselves. They needed to realize among 
themselves an organized existence. 

As early as 1519 the doctrines of the Reforma- 
tion had come into the provinces of the Netherlands. 
The great German agitation could not remain un- 
known in a country bordering so closely upon Lu- 
ther's home. But the Netherlands were just as close 
to France, and in some of the provinces — the Walloon 
— the language of France was the vernacular of the 
people. When, therefore, the sacramental controversy 
arose, both sides of the question had an equal chance 
of being propagated here. With the two views of 
the sacrament thus set side by side before them, it is 
not difficult to foresee to which party the clear- 
headed, practical Hollanders would give their ad- 
herence in the greatest numbers. The Reformed 
faith soon prevailed almost exclusively throughout 
the Dutch provinces. 

Nevertheless, there was as yet no Reformed 
Church of Holland. Persecution and slaughter 
were being breathed out against the faithful, and 



60 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



how, therefore, could the functions of a visible 
Church be carefully denned and exercised? Yet, 
in spite of their distressing circumstances, preach- 
ing went on with amazing success, and rapid was 
the multiplication of converts to the new faith ; and 
as these numbers grew consolidation, organization, 
became more and more indispensable. Nor were 
attempts lacking. The movement began among the 
Calvinistic Walloon congregations in the Southern 
Netherlands. We are told that " these scattered 
Walloon congregations held irregular conventions — 
by some called synods — in the utmost secrecy/ 5 
We have the records of some of them, although the 
information does not extend beyond the dates on 
which they were held. Three occurred in the year 
1563 — memorable, also, for the publication of the 
Heidelberg Catechism. On April 26 a convention 
met in one of the Walloon provinces. On July 
24, and again on October 15, conferences of the 
persecuted churches met in Antwerp. These good 
though feeble beginnings were diligently followed 
up, and the successive years — 1564, 1565 and 1566 
— were also distinguished by gatherings of repre- 
sentatives from the scattered congregations of the 
Reformed, who took their lives in their hands in 
traveling to such conventions and being present at 
them. 

The convention held in 1566 was a very import- 
ant one. It met in the city of Antwerp, the me- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 61 



tropolis of the Netherlands, in the month of May. 
To give an idea of the difficulties under which such 
assemblies came together, let it be observed that the 
members, as they came singly or in parties of two 
or three to the place of meeting, were expected to 
give a countersign ere they could be admitted to the 
house. The countersign for the assembly in ques- 
tion was La Vigne (" the Vineyard "). The object 
of this convention was distinctly and deliberately 
that of laying "the foundations of a regular church- 
association the members of which might be bound 
together most closely in the bonds of a general con- 
cord." Excellent foundations were indeed laid, to 
be rapidly succeeded by substantial building. 

But political history and religious history are so 
closely interwoven during the early days of the 
Dutch republic that we must cast a few brief glances 
at secular events before w r e proceed. Nor will it be 
without profit thoroughly to understand the circum- 
stances in the midst of which the Church-fathers 
found themselves as they were busy constructing the 
house of the Lord. 

The synod, or convention, of Antwerp last men- 
tioned was held, as we just saw, in May, 1566. In 
April — one month before— the memorable " Peti- 
tion of the Nobles " had been presented to the re- 
gent Margaret at Brussels. These nobles, although 
belonging to the aristocratic class, had taken up the 
cause of popular rights against the irresponsible des- 



62 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



potism of both the State and the Church. They 
could no longer stand by in silence and see the king 
of Spain — to whom had fallen by inheritance the 
sovereignty of the various Netherland provinces — 
overriding the constitution of the country. Al- 
though the vast majority of the nobility were staunch 
Catholics, they had become shocked and outraged at 
beholding the atrocities daily committed in the name 
of religion and of the Church. Accordingly , they 
sent a delegation of four hundred to Brussels with a 
petition appealing to the king to honor the privileges 
of the country and to exercise royal clemency and 
mercy toward the erring heretics. It was as this 
imposing delegation filed into the audience-hall in 
the presence of the regent that one of her council- 
ors whispered in her ear, to allay her fears, " These 
men are nothing but beggars who wish to mend 
their broken fortunes." That bitter sneer gave the 
magic of a name to a party : " beggars " they were 
called in derision ; " Beggars " they cheerfully 
adopted as a title of honor. " Beggars " and " pa- 
triots " became henceforth synonymous terms. 

While the result of this petition was yet un- 
certain, while the answer of regent and king was 
still pending, the Synod of Antwerp met. The 
moral influence of such action on the part of the 
highest in the land, however, contributed no little 
to raise the spirits of the Reformed and to make 
them bolder in organizing concerted movements. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



63 



Yet even now they found it prudent to be very 
secret in their assembly, since, as we have already 
seen, admittance to the house was secured only 
by countersign. 

There rested upon the leaders of the Reforma- 
tion all the greater pressure to organize a Church 
because of another event which has made 1566 a 
never-to-be-forgotten year. This was the sudden 
popularity of field-preaching. Forbidden to hold 
worship in the churches of cities, incredible mul- 
titudes went out into the fields or among the sand- 
hills or upon the dykes beyond the city walls to 
hear the gospel dispensed to them in the open air. 
Though it was death to preach the doctrines of the 
Reformation and death to listen to such preach- 
ing, yet many brave men were found who hur- 
ried from city to city, holding their hearers spell- 
bound for hours every day as they unfolded the 
simple religion of Jesus free from the fetters of 
Romanism, while gatherings of five, ten — ay, some- 
times twenty-five — thousand people of all classes 
and both sects freely risked their lives to hear 
them. What could be done with these myriads 
of hungering and thirsting souls unless an organ- 
ized visible Church stood ready to receive, hold, 
instruct and edify them? 

Nor have we yet reached the end of the list of 
memorable events that took place in the year 1566. 
The summer months of that year witnessed a veri- 



64 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



table epidemic of violence, of uncontrollable devas- 
tation. Numbers such as the field-preachings saw 
gave consciousness of strength, and, fifty thousand 
martyrdoms having roused a resentment deep as 
the sea and mighty as its tempest-driven waves, 
what wonder that the masses were ready to rise at 
a signal and give vent to their frenzy? The ob- 
jects of their wrath were not innocent men, women 
and children ; they invaded no homes and desolated 
no hearths : they broke into the churches and de- 
molished the emblems of superstition, hurled stone 
statues upon the pavements, broke relic-boxes to 
pieces, tore into shreds the garments of priests and 
the jeweled robes of Madonnas. From one end of 
the land to the other this storm burst forth ; the 
sacking of churches and the breaking of images 
became the order of the day. 

Most serious were the consequences of this sense- 
less, though almost excusable, outbreak of hatred 
against a persecuting Church : it drove King Phil- 
ip to a very fury of anger and resentment. Regent 
Margaret of Parma, who had been induced to grant 
some concessions in deference to the stand taken by 
the nobles and because of the overwhelming numbers 
who attended the field-preachings, became as rig- 
orous as ever in carrying out the decrees against 
heretics. In the ranks of the confederated nobles, 
too, these outrages produced division, for they alien- 
ated many patriotic Catholics from the cause, of civil 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



65 



and religious liberty. To crown all, the king of 
Spain became convinced that the task of ruling 
these turbulent provinces was too much for a 
woman, and he prepared to send that monster of 
cruelty, the duke of Alva, to supersede Margaret in 
the regency of the provinces. 

The duke of Alva came into the land with an 
army of veterans at his back in August of the year 
1567. Immediately consternation reigned through- 
out the whole land. The loftiest rank and the most 
distinguished services proved no safeguard against the 
king's wrath. Count Egmond, who by two brilliant 
victories had laid proud France at the feet of Philip, 
and Count Hoorn, admiral of Holland, were seized 
and imprisoned. The prince of Orange was saved by 
nothing but his prudence and his political foresight, 
which taught him that the only way to regain the 
country's liberties was by levying troops on foreign 
soil and returning at the head of an army. Thus, in 
the beginning of 1568 — the first year of the " Eighty 
Years' War " — invading armies were sent by him 
into the territories of the Netherlands at several 
points at once. But failure and disaster were still 
to try the hearts of the patriots and the Reformed 
Christians for many a year to come. Two of the 
expeditions proved utterly futile. One, conducted 
by the prince's brother, Louis of Nassau, gained, 
indeed, the first victory of the revolution, at Heiliger- 
lee, in Groningen, on May 23, 1568, but it was bar- 

5 



66 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ren of results for good and rich in results of misery 
and terror. It hastened the execution of about 
twenty prominent nobles, with Counts Egmond and 
Hoorn at their head, within less than a fortnight after 
the battle. Less than two months after this dis- 
astrous victory the memory of it was wiped out 
in the blood of thousands and by the utter defeat of 
Louis and the absolute annihilation of his army in 
the battle of Jemmingen, July 22, 1568. 

The whole country now shook with fear and hor- 
ror of the name, the power, the relentless cruelty, 
of Alva. Not a hand stirred in defence of hearth, 
home or religion ; not a cent of tribute dared men 
forward to the aid of William of Orange. Yet 
was the father of his country not discouraged. 
Lavishing his own vast wealth, sacrificing his per- 
sonal property, he still maintained an army of thirty 
thousand mercenaries in Germany. He crossed the 
Rhine, and on October 3, 1568, he astonished Alva 
and the world by a masterly fording of the deep 
and broad Maas without a single boat and in the 
face of a hostile shore. Now, indeed, the w T ar had 
been carried into Africa ; now he who had sought to 
stem the tide of oppression and persecution by the 
wisdom of his counsels and the moderation of states- 
manship was upon the JSTetherland soil with an army 
to defy the servant of the king of Spain and to 
beat him back from the country where he had no 
right to rule. 



THE CHUBCH OF HOLLAND. 



67 



But, alas! despotism mustered its forces and 
crushed again this presumptuous patriotism, as it 
had so easily done in the North. Alva, in the pres- 
ent instance, was as cautious as before he had been 
prompt to strike. He did not trust to the issue of 
a single battle. He knew that the mercenaries of 
the prince must fall away from him for lack of 
funds, and, avoiding every open encounter, he 
harassed and worried the diminishing forces of the 
invaders, until, on November 17, 1568, the last 
remnant of the liberating army recrossed the borders 
of the suffering land, having gained nothing. The 
patriotic prince was left in an utterly exhausted 
condition, ruined in finances, desperately in debt, 
altogether unable to muster another army for the 
support of his projects. 

II. The Early Synods. 

Thus Alva reigned once more in undisputed tri- 
umph. The iron heel of oppression was planted 
with more crushing force than ever upon the coun- 
try's liberties, and hundreds of victims were daily 
led to the block, the gallows, the stake — were 
drowned or buried alive for the faith of the gospel. 
There was no escape from persecution but in death 
or in flight. Thousands fled the country and sought 
an asylum in other lands where they might worship 
God as he directed in his word. 

It seemed hardly a time to be thinking of aught 



68 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



but the saving of life. It would seem that God's peo- 
ple had little else before them but to devise means 
to keep alive an invisible Church secretly united 
in love and faith and the worship of the heart ; yet 
they felt that even amid such a state of things a vis- 
ible Church was needed for the comfort, the perfect- 
ing, the establishment, of the saints of God, scat- 
tered as they were, driven from home and country, 
hounded like wild beasts to violent deaths. No 
sooner, therefore, had the very fury of the persecu- 
tors secured to many a brief respite in a foreign land 
from the otherwise ever-present menace of death 
than it was utilized to mature measures looking to- 
ward the organization of the Church. 

For several years the city of Wesel had been 
sought as a refuge by those who were driven from 
their own land for their adherence to the Reforma- 
tion. As early as 1545 many fled to this place 
from England, and again in 1553, when Bloody 
Mary began her reign. When Alva came into the 
Low Countries and multitudes fled across the bor- 
ders, a great number sought refuge in this city, so 
conveniently near. If we look at a map of the 
country of those days, we notice that AYesel lies 
within an angle formed by the Dutch territories. 
But a few miles to either the north or the west of 
it we enter Holland, while its situation on the 
banks of the Rhine made access easy. To illus- 
trate how near it is by modern estimates, we may 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



69 



say that we left Venlo, in Holland, with a noon 
train, had more than an hour to wander around the 
German city's streets, and were back again at our 
hotel in Venlo for a four-o'clock dinner. 

Here, then, in this veritable " city of refuge," rep- 
resentatives of the persecuted and scattered churches 
came together in council. On November 3, 1568, 
or at the very time that the prince of Orange was 
retiring from the country with his diminished forces, 
a disappointed but not disheartened man, this first 
Synod of the Reformed churches of the Netherlands 
met, representing the congregations of twenty differ- 
ent localities. It was presided over by the noted 
Petrus Dathenus. 

A worthy foundation had already been laid for 
Church organization by the adoption at the Ant- 
werp Convention, in 1566, of the Belgic Confession 
and the Heidelberg Catechism. A basis of faith 
and doctrine was, above all things, necessary, but 
upon this it was just as necessary to build a visible 
superstructure ; and that was done by the Synod 
after it had ratified the adoption of the two symbols 
above named. The four offices of which we read 
to-day in the constitution of the Reformed Church 
in America were here first distinguished and defined, 
and ordained to prevail in the Reformed Church of 
the Netherlands. We are familiar with them — 
ministers of the word, teachers of theology, elders 
and deacons. To these were to be committed the 



70 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 

preaching of the gospel ; through these the supply 
of men who should preach was to be maintained ; 
by these the sacraments of the Church were to be 
both administered and guarded ; while the tempo- 
ralities of congregations were also provided for, so 
that means for the support of the gospel, the needs 
of the kingdom or the necessities of the poor might 
be secured and dispensed in the fear of God. Thus 
equipped, the Reformed Church could with eminent 
success maintain itself as a visible body even under 
persecution, while leading the souls of men, at the 
same time, to the unseen and the eternal by the prop- 
agation of a more evangelical faith and worship. 

A few more touches were needed, however, before 
the ecclesiastical structure w r as quite complete. Three 
years pass by with no improvement in the condition 
of the Netherlands, and again a Synod meets out- 
side their bounds, now at Embden, in the north of 
Germany, and just across a narrow bay from the 
province of Groningen. It was only a few miles 
distant from the fatal field of Jemmingen. Here 
the board of elders and deacons, with presiding min- 
ister, receives its name of " Consistory," and sev- 
eral neighboring churches are to be combined into 
" Classes." 

Time now hurries on events that bring happier 
prospects for struggling patriots and Reformers. 
The Synod of Embden met on October 5, 1571; 
six months after, on April 1, 1572, the city and 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 71 



seaport of Brille was wrenched from the tyrant's 
grasp and became the first stronghold of freedom. 
Stimulated by this success, a great number of cities 
in the northern provinces cast off the Spanish yoke 
and expelled the Spanish garrisons. This bright 
gleam of hope was, indeed, again swallowed up in 
a season of despair. Vengeance horrible and swift 
descended upon these brave cities in quick succession. 
Zutphen is depopulated in November of the same 
year ; on December 1, Naarden is left without inhab- 
itants, a mass of blackened ruins ; on December 
12, Haarlem is invested by an army of thirty thou- 
sand men. Here the duke of Alva, however, en- 
counters his first check. It takes seven months to 
reduce this feeble town, and twelve thousand vet- 
erans are lying dead in the trenches, while famine, 
and not valor nor skill, conquers the patriotic citizens. 
On July, 10, 1573, Haarlem surrenders; in August 
the foe is before Alkmaar, a small city in the north- 
ernmost extremity of Holland. It does not surren- 
der at demand. Nay, on October 8, Alva's son is 
fain to retire in haste, and abandons the siege ; and 
" Victory begins at Alkmaar !" is the cry that rings 
throughout the land. On October 31 (1573), how- 
ever the Spanish lay siege to Leyden, in the very 
heart of Holland. No relief can be sent. A diver- 
sion compels the enemy to retire for two months, 
from March to May, 1574, but on May 26 he is 
back again ; and now began the sad but heroic 



72 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ordeal that has made Leyden famous, and which 
lasted from May to October, 1574. 

In June of this same year, while Leyden was 
patiently resisting and suffering, a Synod of the 
Reformed Church of Holland first met on Dutch 
soil. The place of assembly was the city of Dord- 
recht, or Dort, and there were no churches repre- 
sented except those located in the provinces of Hol- 
land and Zeeland ; it has, therefore, been called a 
provincial Synod. The number of converts in these 
two small and tyrant-ridden territories must have 
been considerable, for this Synod constituted no less 
than fourteen Classes out of the churches within their 
bounds. Every Consistory was directed to procure 
a copy of the minutes of the Synod of Embden, 
and also of this provincial Synod itself. Its acta 
numbered ninety-one, and related to various mat- 
ters. 

Four years later, in the summer of 1578, a 
national or general Synod at last assembled within 
the borders of the nascent republic. This Synod, 
too, met in the city of Dort, destined to become still 
more famous in ecclesiastical annals. In a subse- 
quent chapter we shall refer more particularly to 
some of its proceedings. We need only to observe 
just here that the Church of Holland had now prac- 
tically attained autonomy and independent existence 
as a visible body, organized and equipped for effect- 
ive work, and that this was only ten years after the 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 73 



corner-stone for this complete upbuilding had been 
laid, in 1568, at the First General Synod, which met 
in the city of Wesel, on the Rhine. 

Is it any wonder, then, that we had a strong 
desire to visit this city ? Devoid of all else most 
sought, without far-famed cathedral or ruined pal- 
aces, without ravishing Rhine views or dizzy moun- 
tain-tops, it was sufficient for us that the memory 
of the first Synod and the beginning of church 
organization for the Reformed Church clung about 
this modest town. True, as we passed beneath the 
frowning " Berlin Gate " and penetrated within her 
formidable defences — for Wesel is now a strongly- 
fortified frontier town of warlike Prussia — we could 
discover no reminiscences of this ecclesiastical as- 
sembly. We beheld one great ungainly church 
with high square steeple and without transept, 
but we strongly suspected it was Catholic, though 
it may have been Lutheran. We saw another, 
vastly more ancient, which was in process of most 
thorough " restoration," both within and without, 
presenting the appearance of a fine but crumbling 
skeleton of Gothic architecture. We could hardly 
believe, however, that the fifty-three delegates to 
WesePs Synod needed either of these edifices for 
their gathering, or that these would have been 
accorded them if they had been asked for. We 
wandered, therefore, through every part of the 
small city — numbering hardly ten thousand souls 



74 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



— in search of something to remind us of the past. 
We noted with interest the by no means imposing 
dwelling-houses, and wondered what the occupants 
would have said if we had thanked them in the 
name of our ecclesiastical forefathers for harboring 
them so hospitably when death pursued them in 
their own land. At last we came upon a small, 
square church, with low belfry, and whose brick walls 
were black with age. We hoped that this might 
prove to be the place where met the venerable 
assembly the memory of which filled our thoughts. 
But, alas ! the building bore the date of 1728, and 
thus our hopes were dashed to the ground. 

Hence we departed, having laid no eyes upon 
the actual scene of the gathering. We had not 
time even to look up the memorial silver cups pre- 
sented to the authorities in 1578 by grateful ref- 
ugees on their return to their Fatherland. But, 
nevertheless, we were rejoiced that we had been 
permitted to enjoy the privilege of walking the 
streets of a city where these afflicted fathers of our 
faith found a safe asylum, and where they bravely 
and hopefully labored to build up by orderly con- 
struction the Church of the Fatherland when the 
hour of her existence was the darkest — ay, when 
that very existence was trembling in the balance. 



CHAPTER IV. 



LEYDEN; OR, THE PLACE OF LEARNING IN THE 
DUTCH CHURCH. 

I. The Siege, and its Rewakd. 
TTTE are now to study the Church of Holland 



' * from a point of view within Holland itself, 
but, even as at Cologne and Heidelberg and Wesel 
in Germany, we remain on or near the beautiful 
and historic Rhine. We transport ourselves in 
thought to the city of Leyden, through whose very 
heart flows a branch of the Rhine, distributing itself 
into a hundred channels or canals. Not far beyond 
this town the river empties itself by artificial means 
into the North Sea. 

In almost the mathematical centre of the city 
there rises a huge artificial hill or mound. Green 
sward and ornamental bushes and lofty trees adorn 
its sides, along which winding asphalt paths conduct 
the visitor to the summit — perhaps fifty feet above 
the level of the streets. Here stands a curious relic 
of ancient times — a structure in the form of a per- 
fectly circular wall of brick, about twenty feet high. 
Passing through a low archway, we find ourselves 

75 




76 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



in a circular court from seventy-five to one hundred 
feet in diameter, open to the sky and planted with 
trees. A brick stairway leads to a broad rampart 
running all around the outside wall and supported 
by arches constructed of large, old-fashioned bricks. 
A parapet surmounts this rampart, rising to a height 
of some six feet and pierced with wide embrasures 
or loopholes for the use of artillery. Authentic 
mention of this fortification is made as early as the 
tenth century, but it is supposed to date back far- 
ther still — to Hengist, Anglo-Saxon king, or even 
to the times of the Romans. 

Whatever its antiquity, here it stands to-day, and 
here it stood during Levden's dreadful siege in the 
summer of 1574. From its ramparts may be viewed 
all the surrounding city, and the country beyond for 
miles. We can here trace the two branches of the 
Rhine into which it divides on entering the city, 
coming from the east and meeting almost at the 
foot of the mound ; here we can see the canals cross- 
ing and recrossing one another, cutting the city 
into numberless islands connected by no less than 
one hundred and fifty bridges, nearly all of stone. 
Peeping from behind the trees that rise from the 
sides of the mound we can see steeples of distant 
cities — The Hague, Delft, Haarlem — and, between, 
the green meadows and straight canals and wind- 
ing rivers and glassy ponds or lakes that fill up the 
landscape. Iso elevations break the view except 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



77 



the faithful and patient dikes, holding and guiding 
the waters and guarding against inundation the 
bountiful harvests and the luxuriant pastures with 
their sleek and well-fed cattle. 

This is the peaceful and prosperous scene that 
greets our eye as to-day we walk this lofty parapet. 
A quite different scene — a scene of violence and 
desolation — would have met our vision in the sum- 
mer of 1574. Villages and harvest-fields were laid 
waste. Frowning forts and redoubts threatened the 
city and hurled the missiles of death from the gleam- 
ing cannon's mouth. Troops of the enemy marched 
and countermarched, and in yonder village of Lei- 
derdorp, to the south-east, where the commander 
of the besieging forces had located his headquarters, 
the white-roofed tents of the invading Spaniards 
glared in the midday sun. 

Within the city there were famine and fever, 
combining into a fearful partnership of woe and 
doing their unfailing work of death. Four long 
fall and winter months, and more than half of 
March, the enemy had been before the gates ; then 
a brief respite of two months was followed by 
the resumption of the siege late in May. June, 
July, August passed away, and yet no relief had 
come, and hope had long departed from the hearts 
of the citizens ; it was the strength of despair as 
well as the righteousness of their cause that sup- 
ported them now. But theirs was a fearful trial : 



78 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



the enemy had sat down before the city with the 
simple and deliberate intention of starving it to a 
surrender. There was no diversion of thought from 
misery by the action of battle or the glory of 
victory. The heroism of patient endurance — much 
harder than that of the exciting conflict — was needed 
here, and during this siege was magnificently illus- 
trated. 

Great results for disaster or for triumph to the 
cause of liberty hung upon the issue of this siege. 
It was the culmination of a series of military oper- 
ations on the part of the Spaniards within the heart 
of Holland which had begun with the massacres at 
Zutphen and JSIaarden. The Spanish host of thirty 
thousand veterans was proceeding through the land 
on similar errands to every city that but thought 
of resistance. Amsterdam was loyal to Spain in 
that bad sense which means disloyalty to liberty 
and right. But at Haarlem, as we briefly noted in 
the preceding chapter, the army of Spain encoun- 
tered its first real check, being held at bay for seven 
weary months, the final victory costing twelve thou- 
sand men ; it was an experience too disastrous to be 
often repeated. But, advancing to the north, the 
city of Alkmaar made the army experience not only 
a virtual, but a real, defeat. Here victory began for 
Dutch freedom ; the Spaniards were glad to with- 
draw in haste and leave their prey untouched. They 
now turned toward the south and sought to chastise 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



79 



Leyden, but the miserable remnant of the original 
thirty thousand which was charged with this pres- 
ent duty — an army scarce eight thousand strong, and 
commanded, not by Alva's son, but by an inferior 
officer — showed that here must be the final struggle. 
If here the Spaniards should be successfully resisted 
until compelled to abandon the siege, they could 
hope to retain no footing in any part of Holland. 
So utterly enfeebled were these decimated provinces, 
impoverished as they were in men and money by 
countless executions, martyrdoms and confiscations, 
that no land-forces could be raised to drive even so 
small a force from before a city in their very centre ; 
therefore upon the patience and endurance of the 
inhabitants hung the whole issue of this last at- 
tempt of the Spanish tyrant. Should they succumb 
and the Spaniards enter the gates of Leyden, increas- 
ing numbers of the enemy would pour across the 
borders of Holland, and every city would soon be 
invested by them and held for the crown of Spain. 
Did they endure unto the end, however — and that 
end the deliverance which their fellow-patriots could 
only slowly bring them, that end the discomfiture 
and departure of the Spaniards — the country would 
be saved, Liberty would raise her bleeding head and 
hope for better days and final victory would dawn 
once more. The devoted citizens of Leyden knew 
all this, and therefore amid every dire calamity 
they bravely persevered until September was nearly 



80 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



added to the summer months that had been passed 
in such bitter anguish. 

News has come at last that the dikes near Rotter- 
dam have been pierced, and that the waters of the 
Maas are free to flood the country up to the gates 
of Leyden. At the same time, upon the advancing 
tide are floating two hundred boats with the ever- 
victorious patriot navy — the " Water-Beggars " — 
on board. Soon the booming of their cannon is 
heard. Nearer and nearer they approach as they 
wrest dike after dike from the Spaniard and pierce 
it for the passage of the waters. At last they can 
see the clouds of smoke rising above the scenes of 
battle ; but the waters, spread over an ever- widening 
surface and receding ever farther from the river that 
supplies them, become too shallow for the boats of 
the relieving forces. 

Fearful suspense now takes the place of the hope 
that had again begun to visit the citizens of Leyden. 
Now, daily, they resort in crowds to the ramparts 
of the ancient fortification and look and look, strain- 
ing their utmost powers of vision to see if the 
waters are rising and whether their deliverers are 
coming. But wind and tide are still on the side of 
the Spaniard ; for many days they look in vain. 
September numbers its last day, and still the city is 
in peril, still the famine and the fever mow down 
their human harvest in the streets. 

Suddenly a change occurs : a north-west wind 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 81 



comes, lashing the waters of the North Sea and pil- 
ing them up on the coast of Holland. Another 
sudden change brings a tempest from the south-east. 
Now the accumulated ocean-waves are driven furi- 
ously back upon the waters of the Maas River ; the 
floods rush through the mutilated dikes between 
Rotterdam and Schiedam, and up to the gates of 
Leyden they hurry, as if glad of the good work they 
do in bearing the brave Water-Beggars and their 
loads of provisions into the embrace of the famished 
citizens. 

The Spaniards, having seen the waters coming 
and incapable of coping with such a foe, retired be- 
fore them, abandoned the siege, and left the country. 

It is October 3, 1574, and Leyden is delivered. 
But Leyden, remaining firm until it could be deliv- 
ered, had secured the deliverance of Holland, had 
broken the yoke of Spanish dominion, had laid the 
first permanent foundations for Dutch liberty and 
independence. 

Supreme had been the services rendered by the 
brave city to the cause of the republic, and supreme 
was the reward she merited. The prince of Orange, 
therefore, gave her the choice between two great 
favors— the remission of certain taxes, combined with 
some other pecuniary advantages, or the establishment 
of a university in her midst. The citizens who had 
so nobly conducted themselves in defence of their 
rights now made choice of the nobler of these two 

6 



82 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



privileges : they chose to have the university. Ac- 
cordingly, certain funds and properties and buildings 
were set apart for this purpose by authority of the 
prince, and the University of Leyden was duly 
inaugurated in February, 1575, four months after 
the deliverance of the city from the power of 
Spain. 

II. The Univeksities of Holland. 
Thus had been taken the first step in the cause 
of learning under the auspices of the Reformed 
Church in Holland. This Church was even yet 
but feeling its way toward organization and exist- 
ence. Only in June of the previous year (1574), 
while the siege was still pressing Leyden, the first 
synodical assembly that the Church had dared to 
hold in its own country had gathered (as we noticed 
in the preceding chapter) in the city of Dort. This 
was, moreover, it is interesting to observe, the first 
university founded after the Reformation, and by 
Protestants as such. Some of the European uni- 
versities, indeed, arising during the supremacy of 
the Romish Church, had undergone a change in 
their religious complexion when Protestantism grew 
to prevalence in the territories where they were 
located. This was the case with the universities 
of Oxford and Cambridge, in England ; so, in Ger- 
many, Heidelberg, the earliest of her universities, 
was now a Protestant institution, and Wittenberg, 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 83 



where Luther held a professorship, founded but a 
few years before the Reformation, had, of course, 
participated in the change of affairs brought about 
by the courage and the labors of its most distin- 
guished instructor. But Leyden was founded 
when the Reformation had become an established 
fact, although liberty of conscience had but barely 
gained some hope of a permanent foothold in the 
Dutch provinces. From the beginning it was a 
Protestant university — the first that was the direct 
outgrowth and the undeniable proof of the regard 
for learning which existed among the new religion- 
ists, as well as the first of Holland. 

But it did not long remain alone. Up in the 
province of Friesland there is a quaint little town 
with narrow canals crossed by toylike bridges. It 
is environed by dismantled earthworks that afford an 
elevated position both for viewing the place itself 
and for surveying the limitless expanse of level 
country around it. This town is called Franeker, 
and here, in 1586, eleven years after the founding 
of Leyden University, a second university was 
established within the Fatherland, although war 
was yet fiercely raging and the land had hardly 
recovered from the terrible disaster of the assassina- 
tion of William of Orange, two years before. In- 
teresting as are the mementos of it still to be found 
at the town-hall, the University of Franeker exists 
no longer. In 1811 it was abolished by order of 



84 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Napoleon L, emperor of France, of which empire 
Holland then formed a part. 

We travel due eastward, and enter the province 
and city of Groningen. Here, in 1614, while the 
Eighty Years' War was still in progress — although 
just then it was interrupted in its active operations 
by the " Twelve Years' Truce" — in 1614, when 
the hot disputes between Calvinism and Arminian- 
ism were raging, culminating, four years later, in the 
great Synod of Dort, — at this exciting period another 
university was founded. This institution is still in 
existence. It occupies imposing buildings that ex- 
ceed in beauty of architecture any of the numerous 
buildings occupied by the various departments at 
Leyden. And most appropriate it was that Gronin- 
gen, the birthplace of Wessel Gansvoort, the greatest 
scholar of his age and one of the most advanced of 
the ante-Reformers, from whom even Luther could 
learn a lesson, — most appropriate was it that this 
city should have become the seat of an institution 
consecrated to learning under the auspices of Prot- 
estantism. 

Nor yet is the list of Dutch universities complete. 
The republic had not yet finally achieved its inde- 
pendence, the Eighty Years' War was still to con- 
tinue twelve years longer, when, in 1636, the Uni- 
versity of Utrecht was established — contempora- 
neously, therefore, with our own Harvard. And 
surely the Dutch Reformed Church in this country 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND, 85 



should be interested in this institution, for the Uni- 
versity of Utrecht may be regarded as in a manner 
the alma mater — the mother — of the educational 
institutions of the American denomination, since 
here, in 1770, was graduated John H. Livingston, 
who was their first professor of theology and the 
first president of Rutgers College when it began to 
assume definite and permanent shape as the college 
of their Church. 

The most prominent object in Utrecht is the tall 
cathedral-tower. In 1674 a violent hurricane de- 
molished and leveled the part of the cathedral 
between the tower and the transept. Beautiful 
vaulted cloisters in ancient Gothic style, surrround- 
ing a square open court, connect what remains of 
the church and the university buildings. In this 
quiet quadrangle, sacred to meditation and to study, 
no doubt the godly Livingston frequently walked 
and prayed and thought how he might heal the 
differences that then distracted the Church in Amer- 
ica, and of which eventually he achieved the peace- 
ful settlement. 1 

From the mere enumeration of these several uni- 
versities, springing up one after another before the 
Eighty Years' War for independence was at an end, 
we may easily gather what place learning occupied 
in the estimation of the Reformed Church of Hol- 
land. It was a place most prominent — a place of 
1 Part I., Chap. VI. 



86 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



conspicuous honor, a place which indicated the su- 
preme importance our forefathers attached to learn- 
ing, education, thorough training. They believed 
with Paul that the man of God should be complete, 
thoroughly furnished unto every good work. It is 
true all branches of learning — the secular profes- 
sions and the investigations of science — were pur- 
sued in each of these universities with an illustrious 
degree of success, but theology in those days was 
the " queen of the sciences," and that first of all 
was the object aimed at in establishing these schools. 
At the first breathing-space in the hot race of per- 
secution the Church secured to itself a stronghold 
where men might be furnished with every weapon 
to defend and to extend the word of God. 

It is interesting also to note what part these sev- 
eral universities have played in the history of the 
Church of Holland. At Leyden, Arminius taught 
those doctrines which sought to smooth the sharp 
edges and the offensive corners of an uncompromis- 
ing Calvinism. Here, too, his chief opponent, Go- 
marus, taught and began that battle against Ar- 
minius which had its triumphant close in the famous 
Synod of Dort. 

The University of Franeker became identified 
with another great name in the history of doctrine. 
In the year 1656, John Cocceius was called to its 
chair of biblical languages. His name stands con- 
nected not only with a new and fruitful principle 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



87 



of Bible interpretation, seeking for light upon the 
Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, but he 
also became the originator of the famous " federal 
theology/ ' representing Christ as the federal head 
of the redeemed, as Adam was of fallen humanity, 
and contrasting the covenant of works wdth the 
covenant of grace. This theory, or " theology," 
won considerable acceptance in the learned religious 
world, and students crowded the professor's class- 
rooms. It has been much misunderstood in later 
times, but yet many earnest thinking men to-day 
find that it affords great help in the study and ap- 
prehension of the plan of salvation. 

Groningen University has become known for a 
less happy development of Church history, giving 
its name to a school distinguished for hostility to the 
vital evangelical doctrines in regard to sin, the tend- 
ency of the " Groningen " teachings being to make 
sin less radical — i. e. less sinful — thereby lessening 
men's conceptions of the power and necessity of the 
satisfaction of Christ. If Groningen opened the 
flood-gates of rationalism, it was not long alone in 
encouraging and fostering the growth of these ideas ; 
for Leyden soon fell into line, and has been steadily 
advancing upon this questionable career. The Uni- 
versity of Utrecht, however, has always been the 
stronghold of orthodoxy, the defender and upholder 
of the word of God's truth. It was for this reason 
that Dr. Livingston selected this university, and 



88 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



its influence for orthodoxy has pervaded the Amer- 
ican Church till to-day ; and in the present time, 
while so many are forsaking the old foundations, it 
stands firm on the side of truth. 

There is one canal that conducts its waters through 
Leyden in a long semicircle. A broad street is on 
either side of it, and a row of fine, flourishing shade 
trees stands upon each bank. The elegant or plainly- 
dignified residences of the better class of citizens 
grace this " canal street" on both sides, their contin- 
uous line being broken occasionally by the large 
edifices devoted to different departments of the uni- 
versity. Here and there a graceful stone bridge 
spans the peaceful and silvery waters, connecting 
the opposite sides of the street itself and allowing 
a thoroughfare for cross-streets. One of these 
bridges let us note particularly. It crosses the 
canal just opposite a narrow street. A few steps 
from the corner is a house marked by a large stone 
in its front wall bearing the inscription : " On this 
spot lived, taught and died John Robinson, 1611— 
1625." Passing this interesting memorial of the 
pastor of the Puritan flock on our way to the canal 
street, and going over the bridge just mentioned, we 
come upon a building that looks like a church. It 
is not like one of those enormous and overgrown 
edifices we continually meet with in Holland, but is 
very much of the size and shape of the churches we are 
accustomed to see in this country. It was originally 



THE CBUBCH OF HOLLAND. 



89 



the chapel of the convent of St. Barbara, but was 
converted to the uses of the university after the 
siege, in 1574. It was then the only university 
building; and although at present other halls in 
different parts of the city are employed for the uses 
of various departments, yet this St. Barbara chapel 
is still the centre of academic interest, for here the 
examinations are held and university honors are 
here contended for. 

As, then, we stood by the side of this historic 
edifice, so well calculated to lead back our thoughts 
to the heroic days of the past, it was with a feeling 
of sadness that we reflected that the Leyden Uni- 
versity has now for years been identified only with 
the opponents of evangelical truth. The man who 
is leading a formidable host of scholars in Germany, 
Scotland, America in low views of Scripture inter- 
pretation, who severs Moses from the authorship of 
the books which go by his name, and who sees in 
the "Prophets" only a collection of impositions 
written after the events predicted and foisted upon 
the world as if composed before — who in this way 
goes through the Holy Book, upsetting the super- 
natural and leaving no solid ground for confidence 
in any of its teachings, — this man is Professor 
Kuenen, of the University of Leyden. 

We could not but ask ourselves, with our eyes 
upon this building and our mind upon its asso- 
ciations with the past, Had citizens of this de- 



90 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



voted town been filled with ideas about the Bible 
such as are now being disseminated from this uni- 
versity, had they held loosely to the teachings of 
truth therein contained, hardly knowing which of 
them came from God and which from men, could or 
would they have stood as they did in their hour of 
trial ? Would those men and women have cheer- 
fully sunk down upon their fever-stricken beds day 
after day, their bodies wasted and destroyed by 
the pestilence, would they have fearlessly waited for 
the coming of that last awful and inevitable moment 
w T hen life, unsupported by food, must refuse to con- 
tinue, when famine should have done its worst, — 
would they have so manfully endured this all for 
religious liberty and the civil independence that 
alone could secure them in their service of God ac- 
cording to the dictates of their conscience, if they 
had doubted that there was a God of hosts who in 
the times of Israel's distress fought with and for his 
people the battles of the truth and right ? Did they 
not strengthen their hearts and confirm their courage 
by the reading of those very pages of Holy Writ 
whose ringing words modern theologies are laboring 
diligently to emasculate and bring to naught ? It 
was the Bible in all its worth and power which 
made the people of Leyden endure unto the end. 
It was the Bible — its strong, heart-satisfying, char- 
acter-building truths — which laid strong and deep 
the foundations of the Dutch republic and of the 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



91 



Dutch Church. And it is the Bible — not explained 
away, not mended here and bolstered up there and 
softened down yonder, but the Bible in its power 
of truth and godliness — which must be the stay, as 
it has been the corner-stone, of our republic. That 
which made heroes of the men of old is the only 
salvation for this great nation. 



CHAPTER Y. 



DORDRECHT; OR, THE GREAT SYNOD. 
I. PRELIMINARY EVENTS. 

"PICTURESQUE DORDRECHT !" This 
J- seems to be the expression which most natu- 
rally comes to the lips of the delighted tourist who has 
made the rounds of this antique town. Says a re- 
cent writer on Holland, " For all the combined good 
qualities of a fine old Netherlandish town, such as 
churches, houses, shipping, people and country round 
about, I should say that Dordrecht would take the 
rnedal." 

To our mind, the most attractive spot in all this 
picturesque Dordrecht was the street or quay known 
as the " Groot-Hoofd." Standing here upon the 
rivers bank, one sees sweeping toward him from 
the east the broad stream called the " Merwede," 
formed by the junction of the Maas and the Waal, 
of which the latter is really the undiminished Rhine 
itself under another name. Immediately opposite 
our place of observation this wide river divides into 
two branches only very little narrower than the par- 

92 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 93 



ent stream. The one turns abruptly to the north 
to meet another branch of the Rhine a dozen miles 
below, and then flows westward past Rotterdam. 
Where we stand we look directly down this north- 
ern fork, while to our left the other makes a gentle 
bend to the south-west, passing beneath a noble rail- 
road-bridge on its way toward the sea, meandering 
among islands large and small before it reaches its 
destination. 

Dort, seated at the junction of these three rivers, 
has always held a front rank among the thriving 
municipalities of the Netherlands. It possesses a 
high antiquity. Almost a millennium ago Dordrecht 
was already a town — then, indeed, the capital of 
Holland. In the latter part of the tenth or the 
beginning of the eleventh century — that is, about 
nine hundred years ago — the first sturdy count of 
Holland planted himself upon this little corner, the 
centre of this magnificent river-system, and defied 
the world to dislodge him. The bishop of Utrecht 
tried, but he feared the prelate's soldiers as little as 
he feared his anathemas. The emperor of Germany 
was fain to recognize the brave vassal who had 
carved out a new country for himself, and Dirk I. 
held his own in his city of Dordrecht, and exacted 
tribute from all those who would use these ample 
streams as the highways of profitable trade. In 
Dort, accordingly, we find ourselves in the oldest 
of all the towns of Holland province. 



94 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Facing the river, and giving access from within 
the city to the quay of the " Groot-Hoofd," already 
mentioned, stands the only remaining town-gate that 
is preserved as a reminder of the past. It is one 
of the most interesting and curious structures of 
this kind in Holland. Its square brick facade is 
ornamented with all manner of quaint sculptures 
in white stone — heads of men and women, arms of 
cities and shields of guilds with names attached, 
full-sized lions, medallion-pieces and inscribed tab- 
lets. Surmounting this facade there rises a broad 
octagonal tower covered with a domelike roof ter- 
minating in an open clock-turret. But the most 
interesting thing about this curious town-gate, to 
us, was the date of construction which it bore upon 
its front. This read "Anno 1618 " — the very year 
made memorable by the assembling of the great 
Synod of Dort. 

We have made mention in a previous chapter 
of the two Synods held in Dordrecht before this 
date — the one a provincial Synod, held in 1574, 
representing churches in Holland and Zeeland only ; 
the other held in 1578, and a national Synod, repre- 
senting the Reformed churches of all the Dutch 
provinces. 

In this Synod of 1578 the government, the wor- 
ship and the faith of the Reformed Church of Hol- 
land had been marked out with considerable defi- 
niteness. The character and scope of the church 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 95 



courts — Consistory, Classis, Provincial and National 
Synods — were now fixed. Not only the manner of 
their composition, but also their modes of proce- 
dure in ecclesiastical business, and even their times 
of meeting, were all determined. It was ordained 
that Consistories should keep a book of minutes and 
a record of membership, marriages and baptisms. 
Classes were to meet every six weeks, and at every 
meeting the president was required to ask several 
questions regarding the duties of preaching and 
pastoral visiting and the support of the minister. 
Provincial Synods were to assemble annually, and 
the National, or General, Synod only once in three 
years. Accordingly, the next General Synod met 
in Middelburg in 1581 ; but the next after that did 
not meet till 1586 (at The Hague), and after The 
Hague Synod no National Synod assembled till the 
famous one at Dort, in 1618. 

The Synod of 1578 legislated, in the second place, 
in regard to the worship of the Church, forms be- 
ing prescribed for use on various occasions. Those 
fitting and instructive words which are put into the 
mouth of the ministers of the Reformed Church 
in Holland and America to-day when they bury 
the dead or baptize infants or administer the com- 
munion of the Lord's Supper were then adopted 
officially, and with the modification of 1619 have 
marked the worship of their congregations through 
more than two centuries and in both hemispheres, 



96 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Lastly, at this first National Synod measures were 
also taken to secure a faithful, undeviating adhe- 
rence to the distinctive doctrines of the Reformed 
faith. The Church then possessed two of the three 
principal doctrinal documents or symbols which dis- 
tinguish it to-day. These were the " Heidelberg 
Catechism," and the " Belgic Confession of Faith " 
in thirty-seven articles. For fear that there might 
arise a looseness in doctrine or a departure from the 
lines of truth here laid down, not only the ministers 
of the gospel and the professors of theology, but the 
elders of the churches, were required to affix their 
signature to these articles, and later, by the Synod 
at Middelburg, in 1581, it was ordained that school- 
teachers should do the same. 

But even in those early days it proved impossible 
to bind the thoughts of men. These carefully- 
drawn lines and stringent measures did not pre- 
vent their straying beyond the limits of a definite 
creed. At this very first National Synod the occa- 
sion for strict requirements had grown out of the 
fact that some ministers of the gospel " had ex- 
pressed the opinion that they were not bound by 
the Confession of Faith, but had a right to depart 
from it," particularly in the matter of the articles 
on election and the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. 
At the next National Synod, held at Middelburg in 
1581, the question of subscription had to be brought 
up again. " As indicative, perhaps, of a secret hos- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 97 



tility to the acts requiring such signature, if not to 
the Confession itself, is the fact that some ministers 
present at this Synod appeared to know nothing 
about this symbol, exclaiming, ' What confession of 
thirty-seven articles is this V " 1 

These are significant circumstances, and they 
were the prophecies of great events and distressing 
controversies in the future. As years went on one 
after another voice with more or less of power or 
influence w r as raised against the form of doctrine 
adopted as the creed of the Reformed Church. At 
last we come upon the name of Arminius. He was 
one of the pastors of the church of Amsterdam, 
celebrated for his learning and eloquence. The 
Consistory having encountered some persons who 
had difficulties in accepting the Catechism, they 
referred these difficulties to Arminius for a solution, 
that these parties might be reconciled to the doc- 
ument and be led to a hearty acceptance before be- 
ing received as members. 

To his surprise, Arminius found that he could 
not solve the difficulties submitted to him, inasmuch 
as they expressed exactly the objections to Calvin- 
ism that had arisen in his own mind. He frankly 
admitted this state of things. But this brought 
him into great trouble, as he was made the object 
of several fierce attacks on the part of his colleagues 
in the pastorate at Amsterdam. The name of Ar- 

1 Hansen's Reformed Church in Netherlands, pp. 96, 102. 
7 



98 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



minius was brought into no little prominence 
throughout the country. By the intervention of 
friends on both sides, however, matters were read- 
justed. The distraction which had momentarily 
reigned was allayed, and peace once more prevailed 
within the church of the metropolis. 

II. The Synod in Session. 

When the Netherland nobles met in Brussels to 
form the league under whose auspices the famous 
"petition" was framed and presented, Franciscus 
Junius, a youthful clergyman who was a converted 
priest, was invited to preach a sermon before them. 
He did so, and delivered an eloquent discourse with 
great equanimity, although the fires of an execu- 
tion at the stake threw lurid flashes through the 
windows of the hall where the assembly met. This 
same young preacher comes prominently into notice 
again in connection with the celebrated convention 
of Walloon Reformed churches which met in Ant- 
werp in 1566, and of which we have made proper 
mention in a former chapter. This great and brave 
Reformer and learned theologian was chosen by the 
authorities of the University of Leyden to be the 
first incumbent of the chair of theology. 

Franciscus Junius died in 1602, and Arminius 
of Amsterdam was chosen as his successor, becoming 
thus the second incumbent of this important chair in 
the land's most famous university. 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 99 



Arminius, as professor of theology, extended and 
developed the views opposed to Calvinism which 
had so conspicuously come to the foreground in the 
exercise of his humbler pastoral duties. It was not 
long before a murmur of discontent was heard from 
one end of the country to the other. But, while 
some complained, others applauded ; in fact, the 
whole population became divided upon the questions 
raised in the professor's class-room, and fierce con- 
troversies raged around almost every hearth. Rep- 
resentations and counter-statements, complaints and 
recriminations, were carried up into the highest par- 
liament of the nation. Public disputations, com- 
manded by the States-General in the hope of settling 
these abstract causes of strife, did not mend matters 
in the least. In these, Arminius and his supporters 
were confronted with the foremost theological lights 
on the other side, who were led by Gomarus, a col- 
league of Arminius in the theological faculty at 
Leyden. The whole country was fast getting ripe 
for that internecine conflict which was almost a war- 
fare, which was to array brethren in Christ and fel- 
low-patriots still struggling for independence in bit- 
ter hostility against one another. But ere the con- 
troversy had begun to rage at its hottest the person 
who had originated it on theological grounds had 
passed away from the earth. Arminius, still a young 
man, died in October, 1609. 

Meantime, affairs had been rapidly and favorably 



100 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



progressing in the political history of Holland. 
The " Union of Utrecht," a compact signed on 
January 29, 1579, or six months after the Synod of 
1578, had given a constitution to the northern 
provinces and welded them into a single republic. 
In 1581 the final step in the march to independence 
had been taken, the sovereignty of Philip II. of 
Spain having been abjured and the republic assum- 
ing technically what it had long done practically, 
the grave responsibilities of a sovereign state — a 
matter of immense magnitude in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, when the traditions of feudalism had still so 
strong a hold upon men's imaginations throughout 
all Europe. After passing bravely through the 
awful calamity of the assassination of William the 
Silent, in 1584, the United Provinces had conducted 
the war for independence with such growing success, 
and had, at the same time, enjoyed such an aston- 
ishing commercial prosperity at the expense of the 
enemy, that Spain began to long for the cessation 
of a war which was woefully impoverishing her, 
while it was making the rebels stronger and richer 
every year. Hence, in 1609 a truce was agreed 
upon by the two belligerents which was to continue 
for twelve years. 

To the theological controversy already raging was 
now added a political conflict. Prince Maurice, the 
son of the assassinated William of Orange, command- 
er-in-chief of the republican armies, a brilliant and 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 101 



successful soldier, had not favored the armistice; 
John of Barneveld, an astute statesman, had suc- 
ceeded in effecting it. In certain questions of au- 
thority that arose, the provincial estates, or legisla- 
tures, disputed powers claimed by the States-General, 
the central legislature or congress of the nation. It 
was the conflict between federal government, and 
States' rights. John of Barneveld led the party 
of State sovereignty; Prince Maurice took sides, 
naturally, with the claims of the central govern- 
ment. As if these combats did not promise sufficient 
bitterness on either theological or political grounds 
alone, the two controversies soon became blended 
into one, and all the acrimony of the one but in- 
tensified that of the other. 

At length men began to wrestle and try their 
strength with regard to one prime question — the 
assembling of a General Synod which should give 
an official deliverance regarding the views of Armin- 
ius. The professor had claimed that they were con- 
sistent with a true interpretation of Calvinism, and, 
indeed, read in the calm light of the present day, 
they seem but a modification of a stricter Calvinism, 
and are far more Calvinistic than the Arminianism 
of to-day. The first one to mention the expediency 
or necessity of such a Synod had been Arminius him- 
self. The Calvinists long strenuously opposed it, but 
at length the latter began to advocate such an assem- 
bly ; and now the Arminians sought by every means 



102 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to prevent its gathering. The Calvinists, however, 
prevailed, and the Synod was appointed to meet in 
the city of Dort in November of the year 1618. 

On Tuesday, November 13, this great and august 
body commenced its sessions. It was more than a 
Synod : it was rather an oecumenical council of the 
Reformed churches of Europe, such as we have seen 
gathered within recent years at Philadelphia or 
Belfast. But happily in those days there was 
greater liberality in the English Church than now, 
for five representatives of that Church, with the 
bishop of Llandaff at their head, were commissioned 
by King James I. to attend this Synod. Besides 
these English delegates, there were theologians from 
Germany, Switzerland, the Southern Nethei^lands. 
Fifteen laymen sat with the Synod as deputies of 
the States-General of the republic, voting like regu- 
lar members. The delegates, lay and clerical, from 
the Reformed Church of the United Provinces num- 
bered about forty, while the professors of theology 
of the universities of Leyden, Franeker and Gronin- 
gen were also members of the Synod. Bogerman, 
pastor at Leeuwarden, Friesland, a province where 
the agitations had not been so bitter as in the other 
parts of the country, was for this reason, as well as 
for his personal qualities, chosen president. 

The deliberations of the Synod were conducted 
through a period of no less than six months. The 
Arminians were occasionally brought upon the floor, 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 103 



but stormy scenes usually ensued when this took 
place. They claimed that they had a right to sit 
and deliberate as members with the others ; Synod 
claimed that they must be cited as offenders and 
were on trial for heterodoxy. In reply to this the 
Arminians objected that the Synod could not be a 
fair judge in such a trial, as they were themselves a 
party in the case. At last this dispute was sum- 
marily cut short by the Synod in refusing to treat 
with the Arminians personally at all. It was re- 
solved to expel them from the assembly. With 
violent gesticulation, and no less violent language, 
President Bogerman accordingly, on January 14, 
1619, showed them the door. 

The Arminian doctrines were now taken up as 
gathered from various publications. Foremost 
among these was a remonstrance expressing the 
views which they had addressed to the States-General 
a few years previously. The teachings of Arminius 
were condemned in detail, and in their place were 
reiterated and emphasized the doctrines of Calvin- 
ism. The document containing these deliverances 
of the Synod, which goes by the name of the " Can- 
ons of Dort," is an important symbol of the Re- 
formed Church in Holland and in America This 
is the latest of the three doctrinal books upon which 
these churches found their denominational distinc- 
tiveness. In general aim and purport not differing 
from the Heidelberg Catechism and the Belgic Con- 



104 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



fession, before adopted, it intensifies the doctrinal 
features therein contained, making more unmistaka- 
ble the clear outlines of a Calvinistic theology. 

When this exhaustive statement of their own 
views and the condemnation of the Arminians had 
been arrived at, the work in which the foreign dele- 
gates had been invited to participate was done, and on 
May 9, 1619, these took their leave and departed for 
their several homes. The Dutch delegates, however, 
remained in session for more than two weeks longer. 
They deliberated during that period upon matters 
of immediate interest only to the Church of Holland 
— such, namely, as pertained to government and dis- 
cipline, to customs and usages affecting the conduct 
of ordinary worship and the observance of Church 
festivals, and to the liturgy to be employed in the ad- 
ministration of the sacraments. A certain collection 
of versified psalms was ordered to be used in the 
churches, to the exclusion of all others. Action was 
taken also in regard to procuring an authorized 
translation of the Bible into the Dutch language. 

III. Adjournment. 
When we found ourselves actually upon the 
streets of Dort, we eagerly inquired after the loca- 
tion of the building where the great Synod had 
held its sessions. History makes us acquainted with 
the fact that these were held in the " City Doelen." 
This was an institution found in almost every Dutch 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 105 



town of importance, being, as we would call it, the 
armory for the town militia. 

In a room in the town-hall of Dort there hangs a 
painting of the famous assembly during one of its 
business sessions in this Doelen. We look upon a 
spacious hall well lighted by six tall and broad stained- 
glass windows. At the farther end there is a huge 
chimney with a lusty fire blazing upon the hearth. 
Directly in front of this, at a suitable distance, is 
represented the president's table. Bogerman, con- 
spicuous for his lofty and robust frame and long, 
flowing beard, is standing; the two assessors, or 
vice-presidents, are seated, one on either hand, and 
at each side of the table a scribe, or clerk, is busy at 
his work. A long table at right angles to the former 
occupies the centre of the apartment ; we are told 
that the arraigned Arminian professors and minis- 
ters were here assigned their seats. Running along 
the walls on both sides and beneath the windows 
are pews, an inclined board on the partition in front 
of each bench serving as a desk to the occupants and 
being provided with inkstands. Several rows of 
pews near the entrance are arranged at right angles 
to the others, a broad aisle between them giving ac- 
cess to the middle of the room. A key to the paint- 
ing informs the spectator where the several delega- 
tions representing the States-General, the various 
provinces and the foreign countries were seated dur- 
ing the Synod. All the members have their hats 



106 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



on except the president and one or two members 
who are standing or walking across the floor. A 
wooden partition, breast-high, shuts off a sort of 
lobby for the general public, apparently affording 
standing-room for but few. 

Having looked upon this representation of the 
Synod in session, our desire became stronger to 
stand in that very hall and thus vividly bring be- 
fore us all its potent memories. On inquiry, the 
attendant at the town-hall told us its location, but 
added that the Doelen was now used as a prison for 
female offenders. This did not discourage us, how- 
ever, for we expected to find this assembly-room 
preserved inviolate in honor of an event of such 
great importance and profound interest to the 
Church of Holland. We succeeded in finding the 
building. It stood in a very narrow street, a block 
or twT> from one of the main thoroughfares of the 
city, not far from the church (and the buildings 
formerly utilized as the monastery) of St. Augustin. 
On ringing the bell w r e were barely admitted inside 
the front door, all further access to the interior 
being jealously denied us. Of such a thing as an 
audience-hall the keepers of the prison knew noth- 
ing, the internal arrangements having undergone a 
radical change throughout in being made to serve 
the present dismal purposes. What a thought ! 
The space that reverberated with the learned and 
earnest deliberations of this august body for so long 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 107 



a time now divided up into tiers of cells ! Still, we 
consoled ourselves with the fact that we had at least 
marked the exact site of the edifice within whose 
walls assembled the great Synod of Dort. 

But, fortunately, there is another building in Dort 
which will bring to mind memories of the Synod, 
and which is yet intact. This is the "great," or 
cathedral, church. On the morning of the opening 
day, Tuesday, November 13, 1618, the whole body 
of the delegates assembled in this church and a vast 
multitude filled its ample space. An address of 
welcome was delivered by one of the pastors of the 
city, after which a sermon was preached by the pas- 
tor of the French church of Middelburg. 

The Synod in a body met in the great church a 
second time on May 6, 1619. The occasion was an 
impressive one. The Arminian doctrines had now 
been finally condemned and a sentence had been 
formulated against the adherents of them. At this 
time, too, the " Canons of Dort" had been prepared. 
A solemn convocation of the people was made and 
this date widely announced for the public reading 
of these documents. Accordingly, they were read 
before the assembled Synod and a great concourse 
of people. 

The third occasion was a farewell service. On 
"Wednesday, May 25, 1619, at eight o'clock in the 
morning, the Synod, composed now of only the 
home delegates, gathered in their accustomed place, 



108 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



where one hundred and eighty business sessions had 
been held. A short prayer was offered, and then 
the members left the hall, headed by the political 
deputies. On leaving the narrow street on which 
the Doelen was situated a walk of a block or two 
brought them into the principal business street of 
Dordrecht. This is not very wide, and winds, with 
one or two slight curves, through the place from one 
end to the other. An easy march of perhaps ten 
minutes brought them to a street at right angles to 
the former and leading across a canal. But a few 
steps now took them to the town-hall, built partly 
over this canal. Here the procession was joined by 
the mayor and the common council. Another short 
march along a prominent thoroughfare parallel to the 
other, but on the opposite side of the canal, brought 
within view the noble proportions of the cathedral. 
Soon the imposing procession defiled upon the broad 
square to the east of the church, where access to it 
is gained through the portal of the east transept. 
The vast throngs awaiting their arrival here opened 
a passage through their midst and then closed be- 
hind them, and, pouring into the great edifice, filled 
it to the full extent of its ample capacity. The 
preacher who had given the address of welcome 
now preached the farewell sermon. So, amid these 
solemn and impressive circumstances, the Synod of 
Dort adjourned, its members separated, and the cur- 
tain fell upon this tremendous drama in the strange 



THE CHUBCH OF HOLLAND. 109 



and eventful history of the Reformed Church of 
Holland. 

Full of these thrilling recollections, we wended 
our footsteps on a Sabbath morning to attend service 
in the great church. We left our hotel, situated al- 
most on the river's edge, upon the " Groot-Hoofd " 
quay already mentioned. Following the quays 
along the Maas, on the outer border of the city, we 
came at length upon a wide square basin or bay 
retreating suddenly from the river-line. Facing 
this, with but a few houses intervening, so that its 
hoary front is reflected by the waters, stands the 
venerable cathedral of Dort. It was dedicated in 
the year 1339, and is one of the largest and finest 
of these structures to be found in Holland. Its 
square, massive, lofty tower, visible for several 
miles from the surrounding country, is crowned by 
no tapering spiral and leans perceptibly to one side. 
Within may be seen many things of interest from 
an historic and artistic view. 

During the preliminary exercises, as the pealing 
organ lifted the praises of the people heavenward, 
the thought remained uppermost that we were seat- 
ed in the church where the great Synod of Dort had 
actually assembled on three important occasions. 
From these wanderings we recalled our mind in 
proper season to give attention to the preacher, 
but before he had proceeded very far we became 
conscious of an exceeding great surprise. We were 



110 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



fully aware that in the pulpits of the Established 
Church of Holland, although founded upon a creed 
of the strictest orthodoxy, there frequently stood 
men who preached a mutilated gospel in direct 
contravention of their ministerial vows and per- 
sonal subscription, but we had not hitherto heard 
any of these. Now, at Dort — of all places ! — we 
met with this experience, and that in the very 
church where the famous Synod had more than 
once assembled. Here, where this Synod had been 
welcomed, where words of commendation and fare- 
well had been addressed to them, where the blessing 
of God had been invoked upon their work — a work 
which it was hoped would for ever after prevent 
departures from the faith, — here that work was con- 
temned and a visible and audible evidence given of 
a sadder departure from the faith than ever Armin- 
ius contemplated. In the very pulpit whence the 
Canons of Dort had first been made public, read in 
the hearing of an approving multitude, creed-mak- 
ing was ridiculed and these expressions of doctrine 
were put to an open shame. In fact, the preacher 
went so far as to apologize for taking a text from the 
Bible, saying that he wished Christian usage would 
permit him to base his discourse on some sentiment 
from a classic writer. 

The contrast was striking and painful, but it was 
also suggestive. Creeds are necessary — they have 
accomplished great good in the history of the Church 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. Ill 



of Christ, God has blessed them to the upbuilding 
of his Zion — but they are human instruments, after 
■all. They cannot achieve fully even that which 
they are most earnestly intended to achieve : they 
cannot exclude the seeds of error, and they cannot 
prevent their springing up within the hearts or minds 
of men. Even in the country where the Synod of 
Dort met, even in the church which the Canons of 
Dort provided with strict and careful safeguards 
against heterodoxy, rationalism is abroad and has 
its preachers. To some of the consequences of 
this fact we shall direct attention in a subsequent 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VI. 



FLUSHING; OR, PARENT AND DAUGHTER 
CHURCHES. 

I. The First English Pastor. 

THE province of Zeeland, kingdom of the Neth- 
erlands, is a curiosity. Its name signifies 
" sea-land," a contradiction in terms, and yet no 
misnomer, inasmuch as much of what was once sea 
is now land and that which is land may at any time 
change places again with the sea. To appreciate 
the make-up or topography of such a province as 
Zeeland, it is obvious from a single glance at the 
map that it must be traversed per steamer, and not 
by railroad or any land-route whatever. Accord- 
ingly, we took the steamer for Middelburg, the cap- 
ital, at Rotterdam, and for ten hours of a summer^ 
day wound among its numerous islands and ploughed 
through the waters of its countless rivers, estuaries 
and canals. Middelburg is situated at about the 
centre of the little island of Walcheren, whose west- 
ern shores front on the German Ocean, presenting a 
marvelous array of sea-dikes to keep back the daily 
tides and the tempestuous waves. 

112 

I 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 113 



The city of Flushing (Vlissinc/en in Dutch) is 
situated a few miles to the south of Midclelburg, 
on the same island, where its coast-line follows the 
vast embouchure of the Scheldt River as it opens 
into the sea. From its position — almost on the 
sea, and yet sheltered from its direct attacks, and 
at one extremity of the country — it has always been 
a place of great strategic importance in times of war. 
The effects of its latest appearance in military an- 
nals are still visible. In 1809, when Napoleon 
ruled Holland, an English fleet under Lord Chat- 
ham bombarded the town almost to pieces. Large 
vacant spaces still stare at the visitor where the 
ravages of war leveled whole blocks of houses, for 
the subsequent long-continued season of peace has 
not sufficed to rebuild them. There is scarcely a 
harbor in Holland possessed of more splendid and 
spacious basins. But there i%,not enough traffic to 
fill them with shipping, and sad it is to see them in 
their desolate emptiness. A little steamer plying 
back and forth from point to point in the city does 
the work of a horse-car line, and makes but the 
more ghastly the lack of larger vessels engaged in 
a more serious and profitable business. Yet twice 
a day there is a great stir in this harbor. Flushing 
is a favorite point with English tourists to begin 
their continental travels. In the early morning a 
steamer arrives from Queensborough laden with 
passengers, who are distributed per rail to Germany, 

8 



114 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



France or through Holland, and in the evening a 
steamer-train brings crowds from all these various 
directions to be conveyed back to Merry England. 

This direct communication with England at the 
present day leads the thought naturally and easily 
back to the times of old when the connection was 
just as close — or, indeed, even much closer. 
When the prince of Orange had been struck down 
by the assassin's hand in 1584, the provinces 
turned their eyes for help first of all to Queen 
Elizabeth of England, as the ruler of the greatest 
Protestant nation. After much bickering and un- 
worthy bargaining in a cause so holy she consented 
to lend the Dutch republic aid in money and in 
men, but it was only on the most exasperating con- 
ditions. She demanded the most ample security for 
her expenditures. Among other things, she required 
as guarantee several of the fortified frontier or sea- 
board towns. These were granted her, and Flush- 
ing was one of them. The command of Flushing 
was given to one of the most interesting characters, 
in many respects, that England has ever produced. 
Motley says of him, " There is hardly a character 
in history upon w 7 hich the imagination can dwell 
with more unalloyed delight. Not in romantic 
fiction was there ever created a more attractive in- 
carnation of martial valor, poetic genius and purity 
of heart." This was no less a person than Sir 
Philip Sidney, as celebrated in the annals of chiv- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 115 



airy and war as in those of English literature. Un- 
fortunately, scarce a year after his appointment as 
governor of Flushing he was mortally wounded dur- 
ing the siege of the city of Zutphen, in Gelderland. 
While almost dying of thirst he refused to take the 
water offered him, but handed it to a common sol- 
dier lying near him, with the noble words, " Thy 
necessity is greater than mine." 

This remarkable man, then, was appointed to take 
command of Flushing in the name of the queen of 
England. He arrived there in the month of Novem- 
ber, 1 585. Naturally, there followed a great influx of 
English-speaking people into a town thus governed 
and in virtual possession of England's queen. The 
garrison was largely composed of English, Scotch 
and Irish troops. By reason of the facilities for 
commerce, too, many persons came from Great Brit- 
ain to establish themselves in business. In conse- 
quence of this, we are not surprised that there was 
organized a Scotch Presbyterian church the next 
year after Sir Philip Sidney's arrival, or in 1586, ex- 
actly three hundred years before the date of our visit. 

It is with this church that we are now concerned. 
Founded by those who had come from the Father- 
land in person, it was evidently kept up with con- 
siderable interest and zeal by their descendants, for 
in the eighteenth century, or nearly two hundred 
years later, we find it still in existence. In the 
year 1759 this Scotch Presbyterian church of Flush- 



116 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS, 



ing called as its pastor the Rev. Archibald Laidlie, 
a native of Scotland and a recent graduate of the 
University of Edinburgh. On September 1, 1759, 
he was regularly installed under the auspices of the 
Classis of Walcheren, for at that time all foreign 
churches on Dutch soil of the same order as the Re- 
formed Church of Holland stood in official relation 
to the State-Church. For four years Mr. Laidlie 
continued to serve this church at Flushing, becom- 
ing during those years familiar with the Dutch lan- 
guage, the Dutch customs and the Dutch character. 
His success as a pastor was eminently gratifying, 
and his position in every way was a happy and 
prosperous one. In the midst of his successful and 
happy career there occurred what must have been a 
matter of strange and startling import in those days. 
He received a call to become one of the pastors of 
the Collegiate Dutch Reformed church of Xew York 
City, in America. This remarkable call reached 
him in the fall of 1763. On the loth of October 
he announced the fact to the Consistory, saying, at 
the same time, that " after due consideration he felt 
himself obliged, in duty to God, to accept the 
call." He was regularly dismissed from both 
church and Classis. On December 1 he was in 
Amsterdam, and was received as member of the 
Classis there, for the church of Xew York was at 
that time directly under its jurisdiction. In Feb- 
ruary, 176-1, he sailed from England, and on the 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 117 



29th of March landed at New York. " The people 
received me" he wrote to friends in Scotland, " with 
the greatest friendship possible, and rejoiced so at 
my coming that the whole city seemed to be in con- 
fusion." On the afternoon of Sunday, April 15, 
Mr. Laidlie preached his first sermon in the church 
on Nassau street which within recent years was used 
as the New York post-office. His text was 2 Cor. 
v. 11 : " Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, 
we persuade men." 

Now, why have we been so circumstantial in giv- 
ing an account of apparently so simple an event ? 
Because it was in reality an event of the greatest 
importance, of exceeding significance, in the history 
of the Reformed Church in America. For this ser- 
mon, preached by the Rev. Mr. Laidlie in the year 
1764, just one hundred years after the English had 
taken possession of New York, was " the first ever 
delivered in the English language in the Dutch Re- 
formed Church." 

This certainly was a remarkable circumstance, 
and shows the tenacity wdierewith the people clung 
to their mother-tongue. But a hundred years of 
English possession had had their effect. Gener- 
ations had sprung up that knew not Holland by 
any personal experience of it. As the years w^ent 
on the Dutch language was used exclusively only 
in home and church circles, less and less so in social 
life and not at all in official life. The people grew 



118 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



familiar with the English toogue in the way of busi- 
ness, society, municipal affairs. Episcopal churches, 
Presbyterian, and others, were established, and fur- 
nished opportunities for the use of English for devo- 
tional purposes. The younger generations took 
more easily to the foreign tongue, which was strict- 
ly their national tongue, for they were a part of the 
British nation. By scores were they leaving the 
Church of their fathers and their ancestors because 
here still the antiquated language was employed to 
worship God. Says a contemporary historian, "The 
Dutch congregation is more numerous than any 
other, but as the language becomes disused it is 
much diminished, and unless they change their wor- 
ship into the English tongue must soon suffer a 
total dissipation." Many of the younger gener- 
ation who could not bear to see this "total dissipa- 
tion " urged upon the Consistory of the church of 
New York " the propriety and necessity of a substi- 
tution of the English for the Dutch language in the 
church service." This reasonable request was like 
a declaration of war in the eyes of many, especially 
of the aged part of the church, who were still " in- 
fatuated with the notion that its very existence 
depended upon the continuance of the language." 
Indeed, "the opposition assumed, at length, a ma- 
lignant and violent aspect w r hich induced more of 
the congregation, that had no relish for scenes of 
animosity and discord, to go over to other Chris- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 



119 



tian societies." 1 At this crisis the Gordian knot of 
the whole controversy was cut in the only practica- 
ble way : the Consistory resolved to call an English 
minister. It was known that there were several 
English churches in different cities of the Dutch 
republic — Flushing, Middelburg, Delft, Rotterdam, 
The Hague, Leyden and Amsterdam — and that 
these at that time were in connection with or under 
the jurisdiction of the national Church of Holland. 
Therefore the Consistory " resolved not merely to 
call a minister to preach in the English language, 
but to call one from Holland through the medium 
of the Classis of Amsterdam. Accordingly, they 
prepared a blank call and enclosed it in a letter to 
the Classis, requesting that the call might be prop- 
erly filled up and put into the hands of the indi- 
vidual whom that rev. body should deem qualified 
for the station." The paper thus sent resulted in 
the call of the Rev. Archibald Laidlie of the Scotch 
Presbyterian church at Flushing, in Zeeland. 

Thus, when Dominie Laidlie preached that mem- 
orable installation sermon on April 15, 1764, and 
began his pastoral labors in the Dutch Reformed 
church of New York City, he found himself in the 
midst of fierce conflicts ; for, being in his own per- 
son the visible evidence of the triumph of the Eng- 
lish party, his very presence was exasperating to 
the other side. He was a man of such a beautiful 

1 Dr. Gunn's Life of Rev. J. H. Livingston, D. 2)., p. 101. 



120 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



and conciliatory Christian spirit, however, that he 
soon won the confidence and appreciation of all par- 
ties, not only toward himself, but for the idea which 
he represented — the necessity of transition in the 
American Church from the language of Holland to 
that which was the vernacular of America. 

But this question of language was intimately asso- 
ciated with another, which also was the occasion for 
much bitter controversy at that time. It was main- 
tained by some that the destiny of the Reformed 
Church in America was leading her farther and 
farther away from the exclusive nationality which 
had given rise to its existence in this country, and 
therefore ever more logically and inevitably toward 
entire independence of the Church in Holland. So 
obvious a position, which events have certainly jus- 
tified, was strenuously contested by a great number 
of the people and ministers of the Dutch churches 
in these colonies. A brief review of these agitations 
and their subsequent settlement will introduce us to 
the interesting and intimate relations which so long 
subsisted between the parent Church of Holland and 
the daughter Church in America. 

II. The Reformed Church in America. 

Nine years after the adjournment of the great 
Synod of Dort, or in the year 1628, the first con- 
gregation of the Dutch Reformed Church was reg- 
ularly organized in the city of New York, then 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 121 



New Amsterdam. With this began the history of 
the denomination in our republic. Only two years 
before, in 1626, the first attempt at permanent colo- 
nization had been made, and a governor, with other 
officers, sent over from the mother-country. The 
monopoly of establishing colonies in the Western 
hemisphere, and of conducting their affairs, was 
granted to an association of Dutch merchants or 
capitalists called the West India Company, a simi- 
lar monopoly for the islands and countries in East- 
ern seas being vested in the East India Company, 
of older date and larger wealth than the former. 
It was the invariable custom of these companies to 
send out a minister or a schoolteacher who w r as also 
a catechist, or both, with every colonizing expedition ; 
and quite an extensive amount of foreign-missionary 
work was thus accomplished by Hollanders as early 
as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. That 
the aim was to reach the heathen savages as well as 
to benefit the emigrating colonists appears abun- 
dantly from a letter still extant, addressed by the 
first pastor of the Dutch church on Manhattan Isl- 
and to the office at home. He therein discusses the 
best method of teaching the gospel to the red men, 
appears to despair of impressing the adults and 
founds his chief hope upon instructions addressed 
to the children. 

The headquarters of both the East and the West 
India Companies were located in the city of Am- 



122 CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



sterdam. It thus came to pass as a matter of course 
that almost all churches organized in distant parts 
of the earth were placed under the care and juris- 
diction of the Classis of Amsterdam. The church 
on Manhattan Island, in the town of New Amster- 
dam, was no exception to the rule, and as other 
churches were organized in the city or on the island, 
as congregations multiplied in other portions of the 
New Netherland colony, they were still counted as 
subject in all their ecclesiastical affairs to the super- 
vision and direction of the home Classis. When, 
in 1684, a change of masters took place on the sur- 
render of New Amsterdam and all New Netherland 
to England, this event did not in the least affect the 
Dutch churches ; so that they presented the rather 
anomalous condition of being ecclesiastically subject 
to Holland, while owing political allegiance to an 
entirely distinct power. It was not till about sev- 
enty years after the surrender that any one thought 
of calling attention to this anomaly or began to ad- 
vocate a change in this condition of things. 

Meanwhile, this dependence upon a Church judi- 
catory at so great distance from the field occupied 
by these churches proved very detrimental to the 
progress of the denomination. If any of the young 
men felt drawn to enter the ministry, it was required 
of them to pursue their studies in the mother-coun- 
try, or, even if permission w T ere granted to fit them- 
selves for the work at home, they were compelled to 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 123 



travel to Holland in order to receive licensure and 
ordination. At last, therefore — and even then only 
at the suggestion of the Amsterdam Classis itself — 
the matter of securing greater ecclesiastical privileges 
was broached , and finally resulted in a unanimous 
petition for the same, addressed to the Classis. As 
yet there was not the remotest thought of seeking 
independence of the mother-Church : all that was 
desired and petitioned for was the delegating of 
certain powers, such as to ordain young men to 
the ministry, the lack of which had produced end- 
less confusion and frequent injury to the churches. 

Strange to say, after initiating the very measure 
that was now submitted to them for their consent, 
the Classis of Amsterdam were nine years in making 
up their minds to grant it. The letter conveying 
the privilege arrived in 1747 ; it contained, also, 
the plan that was to be adopted. The ministers 
and representative laymen of the American churches 
were to constitute an association to be called a Coe- 
tus. But in the very next year the Classis exhorted 
this newly-formed body not to ask for permission 
to examine and ordain students. As this was the 
great thing to be desired as fundamentally neces- 
sary to the prosperity of the churches, and as with- 
out this " their only privilege seemed to be to send 
a joint-letter once a year to Holland," it is easily 
imagined that many began to entertain somewhat 
bolder ideas as to their Church relations. None 



124 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



even yet, however, were bold enough to advocate 
complete independence of a body located across 
three thousand miles of ocean ; it was merely con- 
templated to secure the erection of a separate Classis 
in America. But no sooner was this obvious neces- 
sity spoken of in so many words, no sooner was it 
proposed to effect in reality what was universally 
felt to be so necessary, than division at once began 
to tear the churches asunder. It was now nearly a 
century and a half since the first Dutch church 
was organized, but a considerable portion of the 
Dutch people and ministers were not by any means 
ready to sever their connection with the parent 
Church, or even the Classis, in Holland. Those who 
were for separation — in the sense, at least, of a sepa- 
rate Classis — pushed their ideas and acted upon them 
practically to some extent : those who resented what, 
to their minds, was so audacious and revolutionary a 
measure withdrew from the Coetus and formed an as- 
sociation that reaffirmed as their foundation-principle 
a subordination to the Classis of Amsterdam just as 
entire as it ever had been, rendering the churches 
again as devoid of self-help as they were before 
1747. This ultra-loyal association at a session held 
September 30, 1755, adopted the name of Confer en- 
tie. Occasionally attempts at reconciliation between 
the Coetus and the Conferentie parties were made, 
but without success, and so for many years a bit- 
ter ecclesiastical conflict raged ; hearts were sadly 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 125 

estranged, the name of God was blasphemed among 
" those that are without," the Church of Christ 
was deeply injured and her progress was grievously- 
retarded. 

In the midst of this state of aifairs the Rev. 
Archibald Laidlie arrived from Holland and was 
installed one of the pastors of the church of New 
York. The peaceful prosperity of his years at 
Flushing bade fair to be followed by an experience 
quite the opposite and in deplorable contrast with it. 
With the controversy about independence or subor- 
dination to the Church of Holland he had, of course, 
directly nothing to do, and he maintained a strict 
neutrality, advocating peace. Yet in extending 
the strength and influence of the English party it 
is easily seen to which side the weight of his labors 
and character inclined. 

Indeed, it was a youth born and reared among the 
English-speaking families of the Reformed Church 
who became the instrument, under God, of healing 
the suicidal strife among the Dutch churches. 
Desiring to devote himself to the ministry, after 
graduating from Yale College he went to Holland 
in the year 1766, studied theology at the University 
of Utrecht, and was ordained to the ministry by the 
Classis of Amsterdam in 1770. He was then called 
by the church of New York, and became the second 
English pastor in the Reformed Church in America. 
This youth was the Rev. John H. Livingston, grad- 



126 A CHURCH AXD HER MARTYRS. 



uated with the degree of doctor of divinity at 
Utrecht. 

We have represented Dr. Livingston, in a former 
chapter, as possibly meditating and praying over 
a plan to reconcile differences in the American 
churches while pacing the academic cloisters at 
Utrecht. That this may not altogether have been 
a fancy picture events would indicate. When he 
came back to America he carried with him a plan 
for union which had the full sanction of the das- 
sis of Amsterdam. It is not certain that he was 
the author of it, but he must necessarily have had 
much to do with its composition, and without any 
doubt it was due to his efforts that it was approved 
by the Classis of Amsterdam, and finally adopted, 
with a perfect reconciliation of all differences, by the 
Church in America. The plan was based upon a 
surrender by the mother- Classis to the united 
churches in this country of all those essential 
ecclesiastical powers which made them practically 
an independent and a separate Church. 

At the suggestion of Dr. Livingston, the Consis- 
tory of Xew York on September 4, 1771, addressed 
a circular letter to all the churches inviting them to 
attend a general convention to be held in Xew 
York City. It was stated that the object of the 
convention was to consider a plan of union. In re- 
sponse to this call, a large proportion of the minis- 
ters then in the denomination, attended by lay dele- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 127 



gates from the churches, arrived in New York early 
in October. On October 15, 1771 — memorable 
date ! — these representatives of the conflicting 
churches, sixteen years after the severance of Coetus 
and Conference, gathered in one of the collegiate 
churches. Dr. Livingston spoke a brief welcome, 
and then Dominie de Ronde, of the Conferentie party, 
preached a sermon on the text, " Peace be to the 
brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father 
and the Lord Jesus Christ," Eph. vi. 23. After 
these exercises the assembly proceeded to the busi- 
ness before them. The meeting was organized by 
the election of Dr. Livingston as president — an 
honor which he richly merited. The plan of union 
was then submitted, and referred to a committee of 
twelve, composed of two ministers and two elders 
from each of the three parties, Coetus, Conferentie 
and neutrals. Both in committee and in convention 
the plan was unanimously adopted. Thus the 
Church in America received autonomy, holding 
thereafter but slight and complimentary connection 
with Holland. Soon came the Revolution, the in- 
dependence of the thirteen colonies, the creation of 
the republic of the United States, and formally and 
finally, in the year 1784, the churches in America 
constituted themselves an entirely separate and in- 
dependent denomination with a Synod and Classes 
of their own. At last, then, one hundred and 
twenty years after the political separation of the 



128 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



New Xetherland colonists from their mother-coun- 
try, the bond that held them in ecclesiastical relations 
to the Church of Holland was severed. While 
acknowledging to the full the extreme necessity of 
the separation, shall we not honor in the daughter- 
Church that tenacity of adherence begotten of a 
grateful remembrance of help and sustenance in 
the days of her feebleness? 

Flushing, therefore, was a city we desired to visit. 
The events which introduced its name into the his- 
tory of the American Church testified emphatically 
to the strong and loving and loyal attachment of the 
daughter to the parent Church of our denomination. 
Yet did they indicate also, suggestively and clearly, 
the approach toward a period of maturity when the 
younger branch needed no longer the counsels or the 
nurture of the elder. Hence the memories con- 
nected with this city could not but vividly and as 
by an object-lesson link together in our thoughts the 
Reformed churches of Holland and America upon 
the very soil of the mother-Church. 

Surely these memories crowded upon us as we 
stood within the very church of which Dominie 
Laidlie was once the pastor. Its situation is a most 
curious one. It occupies no separate building of its 
own. We were directed to the " great," or St. Ja- 
cob's, church, the principal Reformed church of 
Flushing. Like all of these "great" — i. e. } cathe- 
dral—churches in Dutch cities, Protestant worship 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 129 



has no need of more than half of their immense 
space. Usually the nave, with its aisles, affords 
ample accommodation for all the hearers that can 
possibly be reached by the human voice in preach- 
ing. The transept and the choir are therefore 
invariably unoccupied, and their space is super- 
fluous. But at Flushing a good use has been made 
of one-half of the transept of the St. Jacob's church. 
A brick wall has been reared, shutting off this part 
completely from the rest of the interior, and, thus 
separated, it has been devoted to the uses of the 
Scotch Presbyterian Church. The benches are of 
the straightest and stiffest; the pulpit is high, 
clumsy, old-fashioned ; there is no beauty nor ele- 
gance to make this place of worship attractive. All 
is severe and stern, solemn and bare. But forth 
from this church and its people went the Rev. 
Archibald Laidlie into an unknown land across 
perilous seas to plant the banner of the gospel 
upon the shores of America, to help lift one of the 
churches of God in this republic out of paralyzing 
mistakes unto a wiser practice and a more hopeful 
and useful future. 
9 



CHAPTER VII. 



KAMPEN; OR, THE PROTEST AGAINST STATE- 
CHURCHISM. 

THE river Rhine, when it crosses the borders of 
Holland, is devoid of romantic beauty, but 
flows on with a broad current of unabated force. 
What must be considered in reality the river it- 
self receives here a different name — " the Waal " — 
which, again, is unjustly changed to " the Maas " 
when the latter has joined its feeble and meagre 
current to the mightier flood. Under this name 
the Rhine waters flow past Dort and Rotterdam 
and through numerous mouths pour themselves into 
the North Sea. 

Before the first of these misleading changes of 
designation the river throws off a large branch 
to the north. For this the map-makers retain the 
magic name of " the Rhine." On passing Arnhem, 
the capital of Gelderland province, it turns sharply 
to the west, after a score or more of miles gets an- 
other arbitrary change of name — " the Lek w — and 
so adds a second supply of Rhine water to the so- 
called "Maas" a few miles east of Rotterdam. 

130 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 131 



Meanwhile, the map-makers continue the name of 
" Rhine " to a narrow branch running past Utrecht 
and through Leyden, as if this were the main 
stream. Thus it comes to appear from the maps 
as if the glorious Rhine had grown so feeble as to 
need to be assisted to an ignominious, artificial flow 
into the North Sea by means of a series of sluice- 
works at Katwyk village. 

That this is not really the case- — that there is 
much more of the Rhine in Holland — we have 
already tried to indicate. But there is still other 
evidence of the abundance and force of its waters. 
Ere the branch bearing the parent name reaches 
Arnhem it throws off to the north-east a secondary 
branch — " the Yssel " — which bends round to the 
north and then to the north-west, flowing with a 
broad, swift current between the provinces of Gel- 
derland and Overyssel, and finally emptying itself 
by means of five outlets into the gulf of the Zuy- 
der Zee. Just opposite the point where the river 
breaks up into these five arms is situated the city 
of Kampen. 

Kampen is a city beautiful for situation and beau- 
tifully adorned. The Rhine waters rush past it 
with a current broad and deep and swift. Span- 
ning the river is a noble bridge constructed of iron 
trestlework resting upon four piers, w 7 hich sustain 
eight graceful towers of brick and stone. Other 
cities of Holland do well if they can show one 



132 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



solitary town-gate as a relic of former days ; here 
are preserved no less than four, each more pictur- 
esque than the other. Except on the side where it 
faces the river the town is surrounded by an elegant 
park diversified with flower-beds and shrubs and 
lawn, the pleasing transformation wrought here, as 
elsewhere (but here most beautifully), upon the ruins 
of the ancient city-walls. One of the three largest 
cathedrals of Holland is situated here, and is ap- 
propriately dedicated to Holland's patron saint, St. 
Nicholas, or " Santa Claus." Kampen rejoices, too, 
in the possession of one of the oldest and quaintest 
town-halls to be found in the country, and the 
town, as a corporation, derives so rich a revenue 
from a tract of land known as "Kamper Island " 
that the inhabitants are exempt from municipal 
taxes. 

This favored and fortunate place drew our wan- 
dering footsteps because it is, so to speak, the Mecca 
of the " Christian Reformed Church" — the sepa- 
ratist, or Free, Church, as distinguished from the 
Established, or Reformed Protestant Dutch Church 
of Holland. Here is located the theological semi- 
nary of this " disestablished " Church, and hence, 
too, emanate the counsels and instructions which 
materially mould the views and the policy of the 
denomination all over the country. The origin of 
this Church presents an interesting phase in the 
history of the development of church-life in Hoi- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 133 



land, being the result of a protest against a long- 
continued and deadening State-Churchism. 

The Synod of Dort in one important particular 
had reckoned without its host. It may not comport 
exactly with the dignity of so august a body to use so 
familiar an expression with regard to it, but in reality 
nothing so well sets forth the predicament into which 
it brought itself by invoking the aid of the govern- 
ment as to say that it had caught a Tartar: "An 
effect of the Synod appears to have been that the 
bond between Church and State was drawn closer. 
The Synod thought that the result would have been 
just the opposite, but it was mistaken. The State 
was willing to maintain the doctrine of Calvin ; it 
was not willing to give up its control over the 
Church. The call for the Synod had gone out 
from the State. Its approval of all the sy nodical 
proceedings had been asked for and obtained. Its 
delegates had supervised the meeting. The enforce- 
ment by the State of its acts against the remon- 
strants was expected. The State felt that it had 
gained an advantage, and it was not disposed to 
give it up." 1 

In short, the Reformed Church of Holland be- 
came a State-Church — an Establishment. It had 
existed before this as the result of a mighty spirit- 
ual revival, and had lived by its hold upon the 
hearts of a people who had risked all for the sake 
1 Hansen's Reformed Church in the Netherlands, pp. 182, 183, 



134 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



of obtaining and preserving both civil and religious 
liberty. Indeed, the effort to secure civil liberty 
was made in order to have liberty of conscience. 
A change was now coming over the spirit and life 
of this Church. Its chief maintenance henceforth 
was to be the secular arm and the secular purse. 

This condition of affairs continued till the advent 
of the French Revolution. Holland became first a 
part of the French republic by the eager choice of 
her own people, and later was incorporated with the 
French empire and was constituted a kingdom with 
the brother of Napoleon as king. In consequence 
of these political changes, the Reformed Church 
was cast loose from the State and left to get along 
the best way it could, while the central government 
was first atheistic and later Catholic. But Napo- 
leon met with his Waterloo, and Holland became 
once more an independent State. The taste of 
kingly government had made the republic so in love 
with it that on the return of the house of Orange 
the stadtholder was made a king, and an indirect 
descendant of William the Silent became William 
I., king of the Netherlands. 

This sovereign proposed to take the Church un- 
der his wing and aimed to make the Reformed 
Church very much more of a State Establishment 
than it had ever been under the republic. On Jan- 
uary 7, 1816, or a little over half a year after the 
victory of Waterloo had given him a firm seat upon 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 135 



his throne, William I. promulgated a decree which 
contained these unmistakable regulations : " 1. No 
ecclesiastical assembly shall correspond with foreign 
churches without the consent of the king ; 2. The 
members of the next Synod shall receive their 
appointment from the king ; 3. The king shall ap- 
point the permanent synodical clerk and the pres- 
ident of each Synod ; 4. The Synod shall not con- 
vene on any day other than that stated in the rules 
without the consent of the king, nor shall it be per- 
mitted to promulgate any of its resolutions except 
such as he approves ; 5. Every meeting of the Synod 
must be attended by the minister of public wor- 
ship or by one or more political commissaries." 1 

Alas for the spiritual life of a Church thus con- 
trolled ! Alas, too, for the preservation of its pur- 
ity of doctrine ! In the course of a few years 
rationalism began to insinuate its leaven into the 
Reformed Church of Holland. Even the ministers 
of the gospel who had subscribed to the Canons of 
Dort hesitated not to depart from them, nor to 
depart from many evangelical doctrines besides. 
They excused their conduct on the ground that the 
formula they were required to sign read that they 
should teach and preach the doctrines of the Church 
only in so far as (Latin, quatenus) they were in ac- 
cord with Scripture. They claimed they were their 
own judge as to how far. To counteract so baneful 
1 Hansen's Reformed Church in the Netherlands, p. 290. 



136 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



a conclusion, several earnest and evangelical men 
sought to obtain a declaration from the General 
Synod of 1835 that the intention of the formula was 
to bind men to preach the doctrines of the Church 
because (quia) they were contained or taught in the 
Bible. The Synod, consisting of appointees of the 
king and presided over by his favorite, by a large 
majority decided in favor of the looser interpreta- 
tion which opened so convenient a door for the 
entrance of rationalism. 

Even before this had come the first vigorous and 
practical protest against State-Churchism. In Octo- 
ber, 1834, a minister in Friesland declared himself 
and his congregation independent of the State and 
abjured all adherence to the authority of the national 
Synod. That voice from the North ran through 
the entire country. The next movement in the 
same direction occurred in North Brabant, one of 
the southern provinces of the kingdom. Here the 
Rev. H. P. Scholte, with his three village congrega- 
tions, located in the vicinity of the town of Heusden, 
seceded from the Established Church. The men of 
prominence who next cast in their lot with these 
bold pioneers were the Revs. A. C. Van Baalte and 
A. Brummelkamp. They were men of eminent 
piety, excellent theological culture and apostolic 
earnestness. Under these trusted guides the move- 
ment was soon conducted to its logical outcome — 
namely, the establishment of an independent, self- 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 137 



sustaining ecclesiastical organization wholly sepa- 
rate from the State, occupying exactly the position 
of the various denominational bodies in this repub- 
lic. For this reason the names of Scholte, Van 
Raalte and Brummelkamp are still fondly remem- 
bered and highly honored among those who are the 
adherents of the disestablished Church in the Father- 
land, or who went forth unto strange shores in the 
cause of this later Protestantism. 

It may well be supposed that the king who had 
made such elaborate arrangements for holding in his 
hands the supreme control of the Church did not 
look on with indifference when he saw a large por- 
tion of the communicants casting off the yoke of his 
authority. A spectacle strange indeed for the nine- 
teenth century began to present itself in Holland : 
" That same rationalism which boasted so loudly of 
its toleration took the responsibility of persecution 
in the Netherlands. In that very land which from 
the earliest times has been honored for its liberty 
of conscience occurred during several years in the 
first half of the nineteenth century public religious 
persecutions by means of endless fines and impris- 
onments, and by the quartering of troops on our 
families." 1 It was in consequence of these unhappy 

1 Letter of Dr. Brummelkamp, the only survivor of the three 
men whose names we have mentioned, to the Reformed Church 
in America at the celebration of the centennial of its theologi- 
cal seminary in New Brunswick, N. J., October, 1884. See p. 
193 of Centennial Volume, containing proceedings, addresses, etc. 



138 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



events that (in 1847) large numbers of the seceding 
Church, under the leadership of Revs. H. P. Scholte 
and A. C. Van Raalte, left their homes and came to 
settle in America, locating themselves principally in 
the States of Iowa and Michigan. As might be ex- 
pected, they joined their fortunes eventually with the 
" Reformed Church in America " — a body which not 
only claimed a common ancestry in blood and in faith, 
but which had maintained inviolate its adherence to 
that orthodoxy in whose cause these strangers had 
expatriated themselves. 

Meantime, the " Christian Reformed Church," 
free from the shackles of the State and purified from 
all affinity with unorthodoxy or rationalism, went 
on to prosperity and strength in the Fatherland. 
On the accession of William II. to the throne all 
persecutions and disabilities of the " separatists," 
as they were called, ceased at once. Congregations 
multiplied ; churches were built and ministers were 
supported without a cent of money from the civil 
treasury, in spite of the fact that thousands of dol- 
lars had been extorted in the way of fines. The 
necessities of the case soon called for the establish- 
ment of a " school of the prophets 99 to supply 
the growing demand for spiritual instructors, the 
supply of whom could not be looked for from the 
national universities. Hence, after some years of 
provisional and very imperfect arrangements, the 
General Synod of 1854 took steps to establish a 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND. 139 



theological school. Four ministers were elected as 
theological professors. Property was secured in the 
delightful city of Kampen, a plain building was 
erected, and the seminary began its operations with 
thirty-seven students. Since that time the average 
number of students in the preparatory and theologi- 
cal departments has been from eighty to ninety ; 
eight instructors, including theological professors, 
constitute the faculty of the institution. 

One of the original four professors appointed in 
1854 was that early founder of the Church, the Rev. 
Dr. Brummelkamp. This worthy man still occu- 
pies the position, fulfilling its duties in the enjoy- 
ment of remarkable powers, as yet, of body and of 
mind. Having been drawn to Kampen to vivify 
our impressions of this notable event in the history 
of the Church of Holland, it was our chief desire to 
meet the venerable professor. A cordial welcome 
greeted us at his house. It is situated upon a canal 
street whose rows of unpretending but dignified and 
comfortable dwellings, interspersed with churches 
and other public buildings, reflect themselves in 
the clear and placid waters of the channel between. 
The classic quietude of the surroundings seemed 
eminently appropriate to the studious life here led, 
and would appear to be affording a happy, restful 
and yet eminently useful close to a career that com- 
menced in the midst of controversies and persecu- 
tions. 



140 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



The city of Kampen, therefore, brings to us 
vividly the memories of that protest against State- 
Churchism which signalized the year 1834, and 
from the very midst of the memories of that signif- 
icant episode of the past we may look out upon agi- 
tations and events of the present day that are quite 
as significant, partaking of the character of the ear- 
lier movement, and possibly the result of the faithful 
witnessing of that trying time. Immediately after 
1834 a season of spiritual refreshing and quickening 
visited even the Established Church, but rationalism 
again asserted itself and filled many a pulpit of the 
Reformed Church with men whose sound was worse 
than uncertain, for they openly denied the Lord who 
bought them. At the same time, while there seems 
to have been an abandonment of that humiliating 
interference by the king in Church affairs which 
went even to the extent of appointing the delegates 
to Synod, there now arose a feature of Church gov- 
ernment which was fully as objectionable. From 
Presbyterian the government of the State-Church 
became what may be called " Bureaucratic " — i. e. } 
in every Church court, from General Synod down 
to Classis, all authority and the conduct of affairs 
were relegated to a select number of men, a sort of 
executive committee, with power to act in practical 
independence of the whole body. It is easily seen 
how, amid a growing liberalism or rationalism, these 
potent little bureaus might be largely composed of 



THE CHURCH OF HOLLAND, 141 



men whose proclivities were all on that side. It 
w r as in opposition to this unscriptural, anti-Re- 
formed, un-Presbyterian mode of government — 
bringing with it various acts of oppression amount- 
ing almost to persecution against those who would 
reclaim the Church for the Reformed faith and a 
pure gospel — that a mighty movement was inaugu- 
rated at the beginning of 1887. A considerable 
number of communicants, shaking off the yoke of 
the odious oligarchies which rule Classes, Provincial 
and General Synods, began to organize themselves 
into congregations not seceding from the Reformed 
Church of Holland, but, on the contrary, claiming 
to be in reality that Church itself, only purified 
from the foreign and unscriptural elements that 
had been introduced in violation of all right and 
justice. 

We are glad to recognize in this movement an- 
other protest against State-Churchism. Like the 
one in 1834, it is closely in line with the stand 
taken by the Church when, in fear and trembling, 
but with sublime courage and faith, the fathers met 
in synodical assembly at Wesel or at Dort at the 
beginning of the Eighty Years' War. It is a devel- 
opment again, as was the one of 1834, most closely 
in accord with that of the Reformed Church which 
emigrated from Holland nine years after the great 
Synod of 1618-1619, and which secured in Amer- 
ica ecclesiastical being and strength by reason of no 



142 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



other earthly aid than its own inherent life. And 
both the earlier and later movements testify to 
the faithfulness of a covenant-keeping Jehovah, 
who signally blessed the Church of Holland in 
its beginning, who then laid within it a power of 
vital godliness which not only has defied all the 
deadening or rationalistic influences of State-Church- 
ism hitherto, but which will be its final overthrow. 
The blood of the martyrs who died for a pure, un- 
mutilated gospel has not been spilled in vain. 



PAET II. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 



-THE INQUISITION IN THE NETHERLANDS. 

" TT^OR several ages," says Chandler, in his His- 
-L tory of Persecution — "For several ages the 
method of proceeding against heretics was . com- 
mitted to the bishops, with whom the government 
and care of the churches w^ere entrusted, according 
to the received decrees of the Church of Rome. But 
as their number did not seem sufficient to the court, 
or because they did not proceed with that fury 
against heretics as the popes would have them, there- 
fore, that he [the pope] might put a stop to the in- 
creasing progress of heresy and effectually extinguish 
it, about the year of our Lord 1200 he founded the 
orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans. They 
were both commanded by the pope to excite the 
Catholic princes and people to extirpate heretics, 
and in all places to inquire out their number and 
quality, and also the zeal of the Catholics and bish- 
ops in their extirpation, and to transmit a faithful 
account to Rome. Hence they are called inquis- 
itors" 1 



1 The History of Persecution, Samuel Chandler (London, 1736), 
p. 160. We have modernized the spelling. 

10 145 



146 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



This, then, was the origin of the notorious Inqui- 
sition. The ordinary machinery of Church govern- 
ment not proving adequate to the task of rooting out 
those who dared question the doctrines of the popish 
Church, a special order of men was created — or, 
rather, two monastic orders were set apart — to ac- 
complish this most abominable of ecclesiastical 
labors. It started at once full-grown upon its 
career of injustice and cruelty. Though enlarged 
in its scope and improved upon in its methods of 
exquisite iniquity in later times, when the heresy 
of the Reformation had far outstripped even that 
which called for the extirpation of the Waldenses 
and Albigenses, in whose special behalf the tribu- 
nal was reared up, yet, as Prescott informs us, " this 
ancient Inquisition, as it is termed, bore the same 
odious peculiarities in its leading features as the 
modern — the same impenetrable secrecy in its pro- 
ceedings, the same insidious modes of accusation, a 
similar use of torture and similar penalties for the 
offender." 1 

The modern Inquisition begins with that worst 
of all its forms known as the " Spanish Inquisition." 
It was called into being at the instance of narrow- 
minded and shortsighted ecclesiastics in Spain who 
wished to destroy the Jews in that kingdom. When 
this suicidal work had been sufficiently achieved and 

1 History of Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I. Chap. 
VII. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 147 



the court's occupation seemed nearly gone, the con- 
quest of Granada once more furnished opportunities 
for its vigorous operation ; and when victims were 
likely to grow scarce among the poor frightened, 
half-Christianized Moors, the time had come for 
turning this fearful enginery of persecution against 
the hated adherents of the Reformation. It seems 
incredible that this blot upon civilization, this libel 
and blasphemy upon the spirit of Christianity, 
should have continued in existence not only, but 
even in operation, until and into this nineteenth 
century. But the Inquisition was not suppressed 
in Spain till the year 1808. Briefly stated, the fol- 
lowing characteristics distinguished the Spanish 
Inquisition : " It was a court owning allegiance to 
no temporal authority, superior to all other tribunals. 
It was a bench of monks without appeal, having its 
familiars in every house, diving into the secrets of 
every fireside, judging and executing its horrible 
decrees without responsibility. It condemned, not 
deeds, but thoughts. Its process was reduced to a 
horrible simplicity. It arrested on suspicion, tor- 
tured till confession and then punished by fire. Two 
witnesses, and those to separate facts, were sufficient 
to consign the victim to a loathsome dungeon. He 
was informed of the testimony against him, but 
never confronted with the witness." 1 

It might have been expected from the close polit- 
1 Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. I. p. 323. 



148 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ical connection between Spain and the Netherlands 
that the " Spanish Inquisition " would have been 
introduced into the. provinces, but, technically speak- 
ing, this was never done, and the claim of Philip 
II. that it w r as not is so far correct. But, as Mot- 
ley points out, this peculiar form of the Inquisi- 
tion was quite superfluous in the Netherlands. Its 
special efficiency consisted " in discovering such of 
its victims as were disposed to deny their faith." It 
was " devised originally for infidels, who were often 
disposed to skulk in obscure places, and to renounce 
without really abandoning their errors. The inquis- 
itorial system of Spain was hardly necessary for men 
who had but little prudence in concealing and no 
inclination to disavow their creed." But if the 
Spanish Inquisition was not found in the Low 
Countries, what forms of it were in operation there? 
The most ancient and most strictly ecclesiastical of 
all, or the " episcopal," and that created by the 
popes at the beginning of the thirteenth century, or 
the " papal Inquisition." 

The latter first claims our attention. In April, 
1522, a twelvemonth after Luther's condemnation 
by the Diet of Worms, the emperor Charles V. ap- 
pointed an inquisitor-general for the Netherlands. 
He was a layman, and, as we observe, obtained his 
appointment from a layman. He soon, however, 
solicited the sanction of the pope for the office and 
his occupancy of it, and his successors — w r ho were 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



149 



not long in following him, as his private character 
demanded his deposition — were directly designated 
by the pope. This direct interference of the pope 
constituted the " papal Inquisition/' for it was thus 
in entire accord with the measure inaugurated about 
the year 1200, being, like that, independent of all 
other ecclesiastical arrangements and instituted to 
supplement the less vigorous and expeditious meth- 
ods of the bishops. Among those who were raised 
to the odious dignity of inquisitor-general we shall 
meet with the name of Ruward Tapper in the pages 
that follow. It will also be seen that by the pro- 
visions of some of the " placards " — an account of 
which will occur in our review of the martyrs — the 
civil authorities were made entirely subservient 
to the inquisitors of the pope, and hence, for all 
practical purposes, the papal Inquisition was quite 
as efficient as the Spanish. Indeed, although Philip 
II. was disposed to take much credit to himself for 
not introducing the latter into the provinces, he once 
permitted himself to express the terrible truth, "The 
Inquisition of the Netherlands is much more pitiless 
than that of Spain." 1 

It would seem that no other form of the Inqui- 
sition was necessary for the purposes of persecution 
in this hapless country, but, besides and before the 
papal, there was, of course, here, as elsewhere in 
Catholic countries, the ordinary episcopal Inquisi- 
1 Motley, op. tit, p. 341. 



150 A CHUECH AND HER MARTYRS. 



tion. It is important to remind ourselves of the 
existence of this institution, because we shall find 
that many of the martyrs, especially in the northern 
provinces, seem to have been brought to their fate 
by processes indicating ecclesiastical action rather 
than any other. The papal Inquisition could be 
successfully operated, after all, mainly in the south- 
ern parts, nearer the seat of government ; it was not 
an institution that throve amid the sturdy people 
of the North and at a distance from the viceregal 
court. Indeed, we shall discover instances, as we 
study the history of martyrdoms there, where even 
Catholics sought to defraud the Inquisition of its 
prey. 

Not satisfied with the papal Inquisition, intro- 
duced into the Netherlands by his father the em- 
peror as early as 1522, Philip on his accession, in 
1555, began to take steps to increase the efficiency 
of the episcopal Inquisition, dating from earliest 
times, before Dominicans and Franciscans had yet 
been heard of. In all the seventeen provinces there 
were but four bishoprics. Of these, Utrecht, as has 
been stated, belonged to the jurisdiction of the arch- 
bishop of Cologne, in Germany; 1 the other three 
were subject to the archbishop of Rheims, in France. 
It seemed but right that among a population at once 
so dense and so opulent there should be more bish- 
oprics, and especially that none of these should be 
1 Part I. Chap. I. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 151 



under authority to prelates having their seats in 
foreign countries. Therefore, Philip conceived the 
plausible idea of increasing the number of episcopal 
sees within the provinces, and of raising three of the 
sees then in existence to the dignity of archiepisco- 
pates, to which all the others to be created should 
be subject. This plan was submitted to the pope, and 
w r as finally approved and established by papal bull 
in January, 1560. Utrecht, Mechlin and Cambray 
became archbishoprics, and fifteen dioceses were dis- 
tributed among them. Thus eighteen prelates in- 
stead of four were entrusted with the spiritual 
concerns of the Netherlanders. 

The measure, however, instead of gratifying this 
people, raised a tempest of indignation among 
them, and, confirming them in the righteousness of 
resistance to their sovereign, it contributed as one of 
the leading causes to the final establishment of the 
Dutch republic. What, then, was the rock of of- 
fence at which they stumbled? Innocent, indeed, 
appeared Philip's motives ; true were the words of 
the papal bull : " At the period of the original es- 
tablishment of cathedral churches the provinces 
had been sparsely populated ; they had now become 
filled to overflowing, so that the original ecclesias- 
tical arrangement did not suffice. The harvest was 
plentiful, but the laborers were few." But the sting 
of the measure was in one provision, laid down by 
the pope, that "each bishop should appoint nine 



152 A CHURCH AND HEE MARTYRS. 



additional prebendaries, who were to assist him 
in the matter of the Inquisition throughout his 
bishopric, two of whom were themselves to be inquisi- 
tors:' 1 

Here, then, was the episcopal Inquisition, not 
only increased in efficiency by an increase in the 
number of bishops, but skillfully dovetailed, besides, 
into the papal Inquisition by that final requirement. 
What need was there in the Netherlands for the 
Spanish Inquisition, technically so called? 

Motley's Rise, etc., Vol. I. p. 267. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE FIRST MARTYRS OF THE REFORMATION. 

THE proto-martyrs of the Reformation were not, 
so far as we know, natives of the republic of 
the United (Northern) Netherlands, neither was the 
scene of their martyrdom within these provinces ; 
nevertheless, the significance of their position and 
justice to their memory eminently deserve and de- 
mand that we devote a chapter to them. 

On April 18, 1521, Luther had announced his 
irrevocable decision before the diet of the German 
empire assembled in the city of Worms, on the 
Rhine, in the memorable words, " Here I stand ; I 
can do no otherwise. So help me, God. Amen." 
Luther was placed under the ban of the empire ; his 
teachings were condemned, and their promulgation 
was threatened with condign punishment. 

Charles V. was emperor of Germany — an elec- 
toral office not much more than an exalted title. 
Over the territories of the empire he had little or 
no jurisdiction excepting over such as were his own 
hereditary possessions, but he was supreme lord of 
Spain and the Netherlands. What here he wished 

153 



154 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to accomplish could be done by his mere word. In 
this same year, 1521, the first of his sanguinary and 
savage placards was issued, sentencing to death all 
adherents of the Reformation. These remained no 
dead letters : they bore horrible fruit in multiplied 
and multiform and frightful martyrdoms. 

In the city of Antwerp there existed a monastery 
of the Augustinian brotherhood. Luther was an 
Augustinian monk, and for a while it looked as if 
the Reformation might be no more than a contro- 
versy between different monastic orders. At any 
rate, in monasteries of his own order his writings 
were read with avidity and his doctrines found early 
acceptance, while other orders felt bound to oppose 
him at first on the mere ground of monkish rivalry. 
The Antwerp brethren eagerly avowed a sympathy 
with Luther's sentiments, and as early as 1519 they 
preached these to ever-growing audiences in the 
church connected with their convent. 1 Soon after 
the placard of 1521 the prior and one of his prin- 
cipal monks were arrested and sent to Brussels. 
The former retracted ; the latter escaped both retrac- 
tion and punishment. Both were released. 

Meantime, the other brethren were not deterred 
from their evangelical preaching. So active and 
successful were they in disseminating Luther's prin- 
ciples that the government was exasperated to the 
direst vengeance. The monks were all arrested, the 
1 D'Aubigne, Hist, de la Reform., Book X. sec. 4. 



MART YES OF HOLLAND. 155 



Host and the sacred vessels were solemnly removed 
from the monastery and the buildings were razed 
to the ground. Most of the brethren, alarmed and 
not prepared to die for their faith, recanted. But 
the prior, Henry of Zutphen, and three of his monks 
remained firm and suffered themselves to be led to 
prison. The fate of the prior will form the subject 
of our next chapter, and therefore we dismiss him 
here with simply remarking that he was rescued from 
prison. 

The three heroes of the faith with whom we have 
now to do were Lambert Thorn, John Voes and 
Henry Esch. They were imprisoned at Brussels, 
where Margaret of Austria, the aunt of Charles V., 
ruled as regent over the Netherland provinces. She 
was a bigoted Catholic, and entered with zest upon 
the enforcement of the emperor's placards to their 
fullest import. 

No less than six theologians of the University of 
Lou vain were commanded to repair to Brussels to 
conduct the examination of the prisoners. Being 
asked what they believed, they replied that they 
held the Apostles' Creed and believed all that was 
contained in the Holy Scriptures — that, moreover, 
they believed in a Christian Church, but not in such 
a Church as the inquisitors recognized. In the sec- 
ond place, it was demanded of them whether they 
accepted the decrees of the councils and the Fathers. 
They boldly answered only so far as they were con- 



156 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



sistent with and did not gainsay the divine Script- 
ures. A third question was whether they consid- 
ered that those who disregarded the decrees of the 
Pope and the Fathers were guilty of death or dam- 
nation, to which they gave answer that salvation 
or damnation hung upon the commandments of God, 
not upon human institutions. 1 

The 1st of July, 1523, should be a date deeply 
imprinted upon the memory of the Protestant world, 
for it marked the beginning of an epoch of as great 
significance to the Church of God as that begun by 
the martyrdom of Stephen or by the first persecu- 
tion under the Roman emperors. On the great 
market-place of Brussels, overshadowed by the mag- 
nificent town-hall with its slender and lofty tower, 
surrounded on all sides by imposing buildings, some 
of which became memorable in the subsequent strug- 
gles for liberty of conscience, a vast assembly of 
people had gathered to behold a spectacle which 
was then happily a novel one to them, but which 
was soon to become all too familiar and frequent. 
In the centre of the square, on the spot where later 
flowed the blood ofEgmond and Hoorn — and where, 
to-day (strange mockery of former tragedies !), 
stands a music-pavilion — a scaffold was erected. 
The dignitaries of the Church and the Louvain pro- 
fessors, arrayed in their robes, were seated on chairs 
according to their rank. In the midst was placed 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 90. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 157 



a table draped and arranged to represent an altar. 
The youngest of the three condemned heretics, a 
beardless youth, was made to kneel before this altar. 
At eleven o'clock the exercises began. After the 
prior of the Gray Friars had preached a sermon, a 
bishop read the formula for degradation from the 
priesthood and performed the accompanying cere- 
monies. This part of the performances lasted ex- 
actly one hour. At noon the youth was led back 
to prison, and the other two victims were each in 
turn brought forth to be subjected to the same public 
degradation from his holy office. This done, it re- 
mained but to execute upon them the sentence for 
heresy — to be burned alive at the stake. But for 
some unexplained reason one of their number, Lam- 
bert Thorn, was not led to execution. D'Aubign6 
seems to think that he was overcome by the fear 
of so frightful a death, and recanted. Another au- 
thority alludes to a report of this kind, but remarks 
that this does not seem probable, for in such a case 
the inquisitors would have been but too glad to 
make as public an announcement of the recantation 
as possible. The Dutch historian of the Reforma- 
tion, G. Brandt, upon the authority of Erasmus, 
gives it as his opinion that he was secretly put to 
death in prison. 

To John Voes and Henry Esch, then, must be 
awarded the undoubted crown of martyrdom ; to 
them belongs the distinction of having been the 



158 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



proto-martyrs of the Reformation. For them, at 
least, we know that the fire had no terrors. Calmly 
they answered, when the chief inquisitor told them 
that if they would even now recant he had the 
power to release them, " Those are the words of 
Pilate ; thou wouldest have no power at all over us, 
except it were given thee from above." They availed 
themselves of every opportunity to address the sur- 
rounding multitudes, and averred that they died as 
Christian men, believing in a holy Catholic Christian 
Church. They declared lhat this was a day for 
which they had greatly longed — that to bind them 
to the stake was unnecessary, for they would clasp 
it with their own hands. Nor were these words 
mere idle boasts ; they remained steadfast, and even 
cheerful, when they had mounted the ominous pile 
of fagots. As if to try their fortitude, the fuel was 
lighted in such a manner that the flames advanced 
very slowly. The name of Jesus was constantly 
upon their lips ; they repeated in concert the Apos- 
tles' Creed. As the fire crept nearer and nearer they 
diverted their attention from its cruelly slow ap- 
proach, and supported each other in their holy firm- 
ness by singing, alternately, the several stanzas of 
the Te Deum. When the ruddy tongues of fire 
began to leap up and lick their feet, one of them 
said, " These seem to me like roses which are being 
strewn on my pathway." But at last the choking 
fumes and the fearful torture took away conscious- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 159 



ness and brought the welcome death after they had 
finally in audible tones commended their souls unto 
God. 

Even beyond death, however, the malice of their 
persecutors pursued them and sought to undermine 
their fair fame and to stay the overpowering influ- 
ence of their martyrdom. It was said that one of 
the victims after death had appeared to a brother 
monk, and had assured him that their souls were 
saved, since in the last extremity, in the midst of 
the fire and on the point of death, they had repented 
of their heresy and the Virgin's intercession had 
wrought their pardon. 1 

But the " fable " was believed by no one. " The 
first blood that was shed in the Netherlands since 
the rise of Luther/' as Brandt expresses himself, 
was of a kind with all that other " blood of the mar- 
tyrs " which from the times of the Fathers down 
had ever proved " the seed of the Church." The 
keen-sighted Erasmus, not much in sympathy with 
martyrdom, wrote : " In Brussels they first burned 
two at the stake, and from that time on that city had 
marvelously favored Luther's teachings." 2 

Luther himself gave these two martyrs their full 
meed of honor. " Your bonds/' he exclaimed, " are 
my bonds, your dungeons are my dungeons, your 

1 Brandt, Hist, der Reform., I. pp. 79, 80. He calls this a 
" fable." 

2 Brandt, idem, p. 80. 



160 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



fires my fires. We are all with you, and the Lord 
is at your head." 1 He seemed filled with a solemn 
joy and holy gladness that for that faith which he 
had been permitted to preach again in its purity, the 
Lord had raised up witnesses who shrunk not from 
the death of martyrdom in their maintenance of it. 
He wrote a hymn to commemorate the great event, 
and one of the stanzas has been thus translated ; 

" Their ashes will not silent lie, 

But, scattered far and near, 
Stream, dungeon, bolt and grave defy — 

Their foeman's shame and fear. 
Those whom in life the tyrant's wrongs 

To silence could subdue, 
In death shall chant their joyous songs, 
Which in all languages and tongues 

Shall fly the whole world through." 3 

" This hymn," says D'Aubign6, " was soon heard 
resounding throughout Germany and the Nether- 
lands, in cities and the open country, and it every- 
where increased the enthusiasm for the faith of these 
martyrs." 3 

1 D'Aubigne*. 

2 Beggars of Holland and Grandees of Spain y Mears, p. 81. 
8 Hist, de la Reform., Book X. sec. 4. 



CHAPTER III. 



HENRY OF ZTJTPHEN. 

THE prior of the monastery in Antwerp which 
furnished the two proto-martyrs of the Refor- 
mation was, as we have already mentioned, Henry 
of Zutphen. This city, then, memorable for the 
massacre which left in it scarce one soul alive, and 
which was the first of the series of similar outrages 
culminating in the siege and sack of Haarlem ; the 
city which has become known in the annals of Eng- 
lish chivalry and literature by the mortal wounding 
of Sir Philip Sidney in its defence, — this same place 
is to be noted, also, for having been the birthplace 
of the first native of the provinces constituting the 
Dutch republic whose name was added to " the 
noble army of martyrs " during the Reformation. 
Here, in this now so beautiful town, whose flowery 
quays reflect themselves in the swift waters of the 
Yssel, beneath the shadow of St. Walburg Church, 
of noble proportions and with lofty steeples, — here 
Henry must have received those earliest religious 
impressions which determined him to devote his life 
to God. Ay, perhaps in that very chapel with low 

11 161 



162 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



and vaulted ceiling, with rude wooden benches and 
steep, slanting reading-desks to which are chained 
monkish manuscript books and the earliest printed 
books, — here, in this quaint library of St. Walburg, 
Henry of Zutphen may have studied, his fingers 
may have leafed through the very books shown to 
the visitor, still fastened by their grim chains. 

History, however, makes no mention of him till 
he is found at Antwerp, the prior of an Augustinian 
monastery, the successor, very probably, of the one 
who had been arrested and led to Brussels in 1521. 
When, in October, 1522, the monastery was invaded 
by the authorities, the monks arrested and the build- 
ings demolished, Henry, their prior, and three young 
monks were, as we have seen, the only ones who re- 
mained firm. They were accordingly conveyed to 
Brussels, and there imprisoned. The crown of mar- 
tyrdom for Henry, however, was reserved for an- 
other occasion. We learn from a letter written by 
Luther in December of the same year that he was 
rescued by a heroic effort on the part of the women 
of Brussels. 1 

So narrow an escape from a certain and frightful 
death did not in the least impede his ardent labors 
in the spread of a purer gospel. We find him in 
Antwerp for more than a year after his imprison- 
ment, but in 1524 he received an urgent call to 
labor in a field at quite a distance from the commer- 
1 D'Aubigne, Hist, de la Reform., Book X. sec. 4. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



163 



cial metropolis of the Netherlands. It was beyond 
the limits of the personal possessions of the emperor, 
and within a country where his grand title was by 
no means accompanied by as absolute a sway as in the 
provinces. The call came from the city of Bremen, 
in the North of Germany. His preaching here met 
with remarkable success; in a short time "the 
whole city reformed itself according to the rule of 
the holy gospel, and even rejected with scorn the 
priests and monks." 1 The bishop of Bremen nat- 
urally was incensed at this turn of affairs. He 
sought to intimidate Henry by threats of papal and 
imperial edicts and by assemblies of his numerous 
clergy, but it was of no avail. As for the bishop's 
command, the bold Reformer knew it to be his duty 
to obey God rather than man ; and when they threat- 
ened violence to his person, he was protected by the 
magistrates, who were of his party. 

In the midst of this successful work there came 
another call. The pastor of a flock of adherents 
of the Reformed faith in the towns or villages of 
Meldorf and Ditmarsum, at some distance from the 
city of Bremen, but within the jurisdiction of its 
bishop, urged him to come to his assistance to pro- 
claim in these regions the word of God free from 
burdensome traditions of the papal Antichrist. Hen- 
ry of Zutphen saw in this the finger of the Lord, 
and, though his friends of Bremen were reluctant 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 92. 



164 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to part with him, he cheerfully heeded the call. 
With many misgivings the Bremen brethren saw 
him go, for they were aware of the turbulence of 
the Ditmarsum peasantry. 

On the first Monday of December, 1524, Henry 
arrived upon his new field of labor, but even before 
he had found an opportunity to preach, there was 
already in active operation a determined opposition 
to him. The prior of a monastery of Jacobin breth- 
ren made himself most conspicuous in these hostile 
movements. He first appealed to the rural author- 
ities of the district, and he had no difficulty in gain- 
ing over these simple and unlearned people. They 
forbade the pastor of Meldorf and Ditmarsum, on 
pain of the severest penalties, to let Henry preach. 
It may readily be imagined, however, that no atten- 
tion was paid to this order either by the pastor or by 
Henry ; the latter preached with great power for 
several days twice each day. At once there was 
evident a marked influence for good among the 
people, and they began to suspect that what priests 
and monks had said to excite them against this 
holy man had been nothing but lies. 

The prior of the Jacobins, perceiving that his 
previous efforts had failed, now resorted to more 
direct means of destroying the earnest preacher. 
He induced the inmates of another monastery in 
the neighborhood — that of the Gray Friars — to 
join him in an endeavor to crush the heretic, a 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 165 



project which was but too welcome in this quarter. 
It was decided that it would be best to make a 
secret night-attack, seize upon the pastor of Mel- 
dorf and upon Henry, and burn the latter at the 
stake before the people who had been carried away 
by his preaching could know what had happened. 
To this end a number of peasants were gathered to- 
gether ; endeavors were made to arouse them to the 
proper degree of fanatical hatred against this enemy 
of the Church, and then they were informed of the 
enterprise and directed to aid in carrying it into 
effect. Finding that mere exhortation and priestly 
authority could not rouse them to the requisite pitch 
of excitement, a liberal quantity of beer was divided 
among them. Thus reinforced and in this frame of 
mind, they reached Meldorf about midnight, and 
made a violent assault upon the pastor's residence. 
The house was sacked and pillaged and the inmates 
were direly maltreated, but, the main object of their 
fury being Henry of Zutphen, the others were al- 
lowed to escape. They dragged him half naked 
from his bed, tied his hands upon his back, struck 
him with sticks, pricked him with their weapons, 
and forced him to walk barefoot over the icy ground 
from Meldorf to Ditmarsum. There they confined 
him during the remainder of the night in a cellar 
in a priest's house, under custody of a party of 
drunken and insulting peasants. An officer of the 
law came to him and inquired whether he desired 



166 A CHURCH AXD HER MARTYRS. 



to be sent to the bishop of Bremen or would prefer 
to receive his punishment in Ditmarsum. Henry 
replied with calm dignity : " If I have done or 
taught anything that is unworthy of a Christian, 
you may take the punishment upon yourself." 
This was accepted as an expression of his desire 
to be put to death in Ditmarsum. 

At about eight o'clock on the next morning, De- 
cember 10, 1524, a party of peasants, directed and 
encouraged by the Jacobin prior and aided by a 
number of Gray Friars, tore Henry from his place 
of confiuement and dragged him to the market- 
place. It was fully determined to burn him alive, 
and the preparations for the execution were soon 
completed. As he stood awaiting his doom his 
murderers observed the superfluous formality of 
pronouncing his sentence. A magistrate, in the 
hearing of the mob, spoke to about the following 
effect : " This evil-doer has preached against the 
mother of God and against Christian faith, for 
which cause I condemn and deliver him to the death 
by fire in the name of my gracious lord the bishop 
of Bremen." Ilenry replied : " I have not done 
this ; but, O Lord, thy will be done." Then, lift- 
ing his eyes heavenward, he prayed : " Lord, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do. To 
thy name alone be the glory, O heavenly Father !" 
A Gray Friar now approached him to receive his 
confession, but Henry met him with the gentle 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 167 



query, a My brother, have I ever done you any 
evil?" The monk giving a negative answer, the 
Keformer continued : " Why, then, should I con- 
fess to you or ask you to forgive me ?" The friar 
was nonplussed, and quickly withdrew among the 
crowd. 

The martyrdom was not delayed a moment longer. 
It began with an indiscriminate attack from all sides 
and with all sorts of instruments ; one struck Henry 
upon the head with the flat of a sword, another gave 
him a blow with a hammer. The fagots of the pile 
could not be gotten to take fire, which was at once 
ascribed to the deviFs agency. When, at last, the 
flames sprung up, Henry was lashed to a ladder, 
he meanwhile witnessing for Christ while they ex- 
tended him upon it. To stop his discourse some 
struck him upon the lips with clenched fist ; one 
man stepped violently upon his chest, while the fel- 
low 7 who was tying his neck to a rung of the ladder 
gave so hard a twist to the rope that the poor victim 
was nearly strangled — a mishap which would have 
been a mercy to him in the circumstances. The lad- 
der was now raised to an erect position, and a sol- 
dier's pike w r as placed against a rung to support it ; 
but the pike slipped from its position and the mar- 
tyr fell with all his weight upon the sharp point, 
which passed through Henry's body, the ladder 
with its burden falling, at the same time, clear of the 
fire. As even yet life was not yet extinct and the 



168 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



flames seemed to refuse to touch the victim, one of 
the murderers beat upon his exhausted breast with a 
hammer till the breath left it and he was no longer 
seen to move. The corpse was then thrown upon 
the smouldering embers, but, as it was not consumed 
by these, the next day the hands and the feet were 
burned and the scorched body was deposited in a 
grave, upon which the infuriated mob danced in a 
frenzy of inhuman glee. 1 

Thus expired Henry of Zutphen, the first native 
of Dutch soil who suffered for his Master when the 
persecutions of the Reformation began to rage. The 
details of the martyrdom are almost too revolting 
for recital, yet it may be wholesome to look upon 
what deeds have been done in the name of religion. 
It was not only death which stared the Reformers in 
the face. Their sincerity and hardihood in the faith 
were confronted with death in its most excruciating, 
prolonged and horrific forms, restricted, sometimes, 
by no laws, human or divine. That they endured 
unto this bitter, bitter end in spite of all is to us for 
an example, and was to them the earnest of the 
crown of life. 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, pp. 92-94. 



CHAPTER IV. 



JOHN PISTORWS: HIS LIFE AND LABORS. 



OERDEN is but a little city, with a popula- 



te » tion of not quite five thousand, in the prov- 
ince of South Holland, near the borders of Utrecht. 
It is a place quite unvisited by the ordinary tourist ; 
to the student of history, however, it is a shrine not 
to be neglected. A walk of about five minutes 
brings us from the station to a narrow stream, its 
banks lined with ancient trees. We can hardly be 
made to believe that this is the river Rhine, yet the 
maps of Holland assure us that it is. We soon 
cross a bridge over a canal at right angles to the 
river, which formerly served as a moat, and what 
formerly were the walls are here, as in almost every 
other Dutch city, converted into beautiful prome- 
nades and parks with undulating walks or lawns 
and planted with fine umbrageous trees. 

A walk of a few rods along the main street — not 
very wide and slightly winding — brings us to a 
principal cross-street. It leads, by means of a 
boldly-curving stone bridge, across the Rhine as it 
flows through the city. Soon we stand looking with 




169 



170 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



interest at an exceedingly quaint, old-fashioned 
town-hall, and near it is the Reformed church — a 
huge building surrounded by lofty trees and facing 
one of the boulevards, or parks, formed out of the 
old fortifications. This church, however, is not the 
one we want ; we have an idea that the Lutheran 
church must contain the object of our search. We 
are directed to it ; it is near where formerly stood 
the Leyden gate, now a mere name. We find it, 
are shown its curious interior, and then are taken 
into an " upper room," a sort of vestry or consistory- 
room. At once we discover that we are in the right 
place. Two oil-paintings adorn the wall. One rep- 
resents Martin Luther ; the other, John Pistorius 
or John de Bakker. 

John, who later in life received the appellation 
of "de Bakker" ("the baker") — or, in more 
learned form, " Pistorius " — was the son of the Jcos- 
ter (" sexton " or " sacristan ") of the " great " 
church of Woerden, which is now the Reformed 
church of that place. This little city, therefore, 
enjoys the distinction of being the birthplace of the 
first martyr of the Reformation whose blood fell upon 
the actual soil of Holland, and who was martyred 
for laboring in the gospel within her borders ; for 
Henry of Zutphen, while a native of what was subse- 
quently the republic or kingdom of Holland, labored 
and died upon foreign soil. 

The position of sacristan, or sexton, was not such 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 171 



a humble one at that time (nor is it now) in Holland, 
as we might suppose. The father of John Pistorius 
was of a good family, had studied in the same schools 
with Erasmus and still enjoyed his personal friend- 
ship. He destined his son for the Church. At the 
age of twelve John was sent to Utrecht to begin his 
studies. Possessing a line, clear voice, he was em- 
ployed by the priests of the cathedral church to sing 
in the choir; this somewhat interfered with his 
studies, but after three years he abandoned the choir 
and devoted himself exclusively to preparation for 
the priesthood. His teacher was John Rhodius, 
a man of great learning with decidedly evangelical 
tendencies, for he was one of the translators of the 
New Testament which was published in the ver- 
nacular at Amsterdam in 1525. 1 The teacher's 
views did not remain without their effect upon the 
pupil, and even at this tender age he was suspected 
and hated for his supposed sympathy with Luther's 
doctrine. His father, alarmed at this state of things, 
removed John at once from Utrecht and sent him to 
the University of Louvain ; here he came into con- 
tact with the great Erasmus, his father's friend. 
When he had reached the proper age for ordination, 
he returned to Utrecht to be consecrated to the 
priesthood. It was not at all in accordance with 
his own wishes that he took this office upon him, 
but, as he declared at his trial, entirely to gratify 
1 Hansen's Reformed Church in the Netherlands, p. 30. 



172 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



his father — or, rather, in obedience to his father's 
peremptory command. 

John was appointed to serve in the church of his 
native town, and took especial pleasure in the in- 
struction of the people. Taking for his text-book 
a catechism authorized by the Church of Rome, he 
allowed his interpretations to be guided entirely by 
the evangelical views he had imbibed early in life and 
had never outgrown. The authorities of the Church 
at the episcopal see of Utrecht soon learned of his 
conduct, and he was ordered to come to the ecclesi- 
astical capital and render an account. He refused 
to obey. As Woerden was situated within the prov- 
ince of Holland, the provincial court at The Hague 
was appealed to, and John was accused before it of 
contumacy. As a consequence, the commander of 
the fortress of Woerden was directed to arrest him 
and cast him into prison. But he did not remain 
here long, for the burghers of the city were indig- 
nant at these summary proceedings against a resi- 
dent and native townsman at the instance of accusers 
in a neighboring province and in direct violation of 
their civil privileges. There was no one found bold 
enough to repair to Woerden and lay a formal accu- 
sation against the evangelical priest, and hence, after 
a while, Pistorius was released from prison on con- 
dition that he would produce himself whenever 
wanted for trial. 

The ecclesiastics at Utrecht were enraged at the 



MARTY US OF HOLLAND. 173 



escape of their victim. Although impotent to in- 
jure him directly, they knew how to annoy him in 
various ways, and they embittered his life to such a 
degree that he fled the country and went into volun- 
tary exile. He journeyed to Wittenberg that he 
might sit at the feet of Luther ; and it is interest- 
ing to notice how plainly the results of that visit 
remained apparent in Woerden for many years after 
the martyr's death. When the days of Romish 
supremacy in Holland had gone by and the Re- 
formed Church was everywhere established, this 
city remained a stronghold of Lutheranism, and so 
intolerant and vehemently sectarian had the spirit 
of the inhabitants become in 1579, that one of their 
preachers, John Scaliger — who must not for a mo- 
ment be identified w T ith either of the world-renowned 
scholars of that name — no doubt encouraged by the 
well-known sentiments of his hearers, ventured to 
go so far as to denounce preachers and members of 
the Reformed or State-Church in the most extrava- 
gant terms; even the States-General and William 
of Orange came in for a great share of this ha- 
bitual abuse. As a result, he, together with a col- 
league, was deposed and forbidden to preach within 
the province of Holland. The use of the " great " 
church, hitherto exclusively theirs, was also at this 
time forbidden to the Lutherans. They w r ere, there- 
fore, compelled to build another house of worship, 
and henceforth the two confessions were preached 



174 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



side by side in the little city. 1 Thus it is readily 
seen that the Lutheran church in Woerden to-day 
bears witness to the depth of the impression made 
by the master-mind of Luther upon the young Pis- 
torius during his brief visit, and is a monument to 
the faithfulness and power wherewith he conveyed 
that impression to those of his native town who 
through his preaching were led to accept the doc- 
trines of the Reformation. Hence the Lutheran 
church of Woerden is the shrine where we must 
honor the memory of this proto-martyr of Hol- 
land, and hence his portrait, as founder of this 
church, is appropriately hung by the side of that 
of the great Luther himself, as the founder of their 
sect. 

Confirmed in the newer and better faith, and 
encouraged by the lion-hearted leader of the Ref- 
ormation to preach it unto priest-ridden and dark- 
ened souls at every hazard, Pistorius returned to 
Woerden. The authorities at Utrecht at once re- 
newed their opposition, demanding his appearance 
before them to answer a charge of heresy. On refus- 
ing to appear, he was sentenced to go to Rome and to 
remain three years in exile. Heeding the sentence 
as little as the summons, to elude an attempt to 
secure his person by violence he left Woerden and 
went all through the province of Holland, preach- 
ing everywhere the saving doctrines of grace. He 
1 Brandt, Hist der Reform., Vol. I. pp. 662, 663. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



175 



then settled down once more in his native town, 
abandoned the priestly office, married a wife and 
resorted to secular occupations to earn his support. 
He followed the trade of baker for. a while, but 
performed also the labors of agriculture as oppor- 
tunity offered to win for himself and his wife a 
respectable sustenance. Nevertheless, the dearest 
object of his life was not forgotten. In the even- 
ings, on the Sabbath — whenever he had a moment 
of leisure — he instructed men in the truths of sal- 
vation and sought to rescue them from the super- 
stition of Rome. While thus occupied there came 
across his path the same dark shadow of Romish 
corruption that had aroused the great Reformer of 
Wittenberg. Learning nothing from the past, re- 
gardless of the convulsions that had shaken Europe 
after the first shameless sale of indulgences had 
awakened the lion within Luther, hungry only for 
the gold of Christians and luring their souls to 
destruction for the sake of gaining that— so "the 
dome of St. Peter might rise a little nearer to the 
sky" — the pope insisted upon a renewed effort to 
secure the purchase of his indulgences throughout 
Christendom. 

The movement reached also the little city of 
Woerden. Pistorius at once resumed the priestly 
functions and entered the confessional. It was here 
that Luther combated this outrage upon Christianity, 
and here, too, was the most effective battlefield, for 



176 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to the priest in the hour of confession the infernal 
license of the indulgence was presented as a receipted 
bill for the advance payment of penalties that would 
otherwise have to be inflicted. Pistorius declined 
the customary fees, and hence induced a greater 
number of people to come to him. He would then 
refuse to honor the papal indulgence, and would 
impress upon the hearts of men the wickedness of 
such a scheme and the real way of obtaining pardon 
for sins. Naturally, these proceedings excited anew 
the enmity of the priests and the ecclesiastical author- 
ities. He was accused before the town council and 
summoned to answer before them the charges brought 
against him. He consented to plead his cause be- 
fore a number of the clergy, whom he reduced to 
silence by his unanswerable appeals to Scripture. 
One of these, however, finding himself outdone in 
argument, resorted to a never-failing expedient. 
He wrote to the regent Margaret an elaborate re- 
port of the process, attested by the town secretary. 
By Margaret's order Pistorius was immediately 
seized, conveyed to The Hague and consigned to 
prison to await his trial. 



CHAPTEK V. 



JOHN PISTOBIUS: HIS DEATH 

mHE HAGUE, the city where the king of Hol- 
-L land holds his court and where the Parliament 
meets, aspires to be the most elegant city of the 
kingdom ; and certainly the most beautiful and de- 
lightful part of the city is that where the " Vy ver " 
is situated. This is a large pond whose silvery waters 
on the one side reflect the Parliament houses, rising 
directly from their surface, while on two other sides 
it is bordered by quays adorned with flower-beds 
and shaded by rows of noble trees. Beyond the 
trees are seen the splendid palaces of some of the 
richest and most aristocratic citizens. If we leave 
the court whereon the Parliament buildings face 
and proceed along the adjoining or "outer" court 
to the head of the " Vyver," or if we approach the 
latter along the tree-lined quay or street opposite 
the Parliament, we shall in either case come upon a 
grim old building in a shady quadrangle to which 
the sun has no access, and where his cheer would 
evidently be of no avail. This is the Gevangen 
Poort, or "Prison-Gate." Dire scenes have here 

12 177 



178 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



been witnessed at various periods of Dutch history, 
and here John Pistorius was confined in the early 
part of the year 1525. 

This building has long since been abandoned as a 
prison, the last person who was confined here being 
now a very aged man once high in the employ of 
the State (we are assured by the guide), who was 
brought to this unfortunate pass by a youthful in- 
discretion while at the university. The interior, 
therefore, is now open to the inspection of the pub- 
lic. We had not expected to find the actual prison 
or cell where Pistorius was confined. No guide- 
books had made mention of it, no history that we 
had read had specified its exact location in The 
Hague. It was accordingly with a feeling of strange 
excitement that we followed the guide when he pro- 
posed to show the very spot w 7 here John Pistorius 
had spent several dreary months. Up to the third 
story he took us along a winding staircase with 
solid oaken steps ; then we were conducted through 
a narrow corridor on one side of which were ar- 
ranged cells that had much the appearance of cages 
or stalls for cattle. On the side of the door, and 
from a distance of about four feet above the floor to 
the ceiling, they were provided with a network of 
powerful iron bars crossing one another at right 
angles and leaving spaces perhaps four inches square. 
Thus the passer-by could have a full view of the 
interior, the light coming through windows high up 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



179 



in the opposite wall of the corridor. Such was the 
cell of John Pistorius. It was located at the farther 
end of the corridor, the part of the hall upon which 
it opened being itself shut off from the remainder 
by a stout oaken door. We passed through this 
doorway and then through the cell-door into the 
cell. It was almost totally dark. The guide lighted 
a candle and showed us a hole broken through the 
brick wall, but closed by an impenetrable partition 
of solid oak against which the bricks rested. He 
said that Pistorius had dug the hole with his fingers. 
Holding the light up to the plastering, he pointed to 
figures and words drawn and written in blood, and 
alleged that the martyr in his despair had traced 
these there. He called our attention to the fact that 
three sets of grating in the window before us, cut 
through a wall eighty-four inches thick, and the 
grating of the cell itself, prevented the prisoner's 
escape in that direction, and bade us count the six 
successive immensely thick oaken doors that shut 
him out from liberty. 

The sight of the very surroundings which had 
brought direst misery to this historic character so 
long ago was deeply impressive, but it was espe- 
cially important to us, because now we could clearly 
understand a circumstance of which mention is made 
in every account of this martyrdom which we have 
read — namely, that on his way to the stake Pistorius, 
passing the prison, addressed words of comfort to 



180 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



his brethren in the faith there confined, and was an- 
swered by exhortations to firmness and songs of 
praise. It always seemed inexplicable to us that 
prisoners should have been confined in a manner so 
convenient for exchanging conversations with passers- 
by in the street, but it now seemed very plain. In 
the cell next to Pistorius, on the same corridor, were 
confined six or more persons eminent for learning or 
character, and also on the charge of favoring the 
heretical doctrines. On being led to execution Pis- 
torius must necessarily have passed by this cell, and 
the open grating already described gave abundant 
opportunity for the interchange of greetings such as 
are recorded in the various histories. 

In this dark, dismal cell, then, Pistorius lan- 
guished for several months. He was not even per- 
mitted to remain there alone during all this period. 
At one time he was compelled to share it with ten 
of the vilest and lowest criminals, swarming with 
disgusting vermin, coarse and blasphemous in their 
language. He proclaimed a saving gospel to them, 
however, and many even of such companions he was 
instrumental in leading to Christ and his service. 
So dreadful was the condition of his cell toward the 
end of his imprisonment that the inquisitor who had 
gone up to confer with him there hurried back after 
a few moments, almost choked by the vile odors he 
had breathed and unable to restrain a violent fit of 
vomiting. It is a question whether this part of the 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



181 



martyrdom might Dot more truly deserve the name 
than the brief moments of torture at the stake. 

At last, four months after he had been brought to 
The Hague, on the 14th of July, 1525, Pistorius 
was confronted with the inquisitors. A few unim- 
portant conferences had taken place before, but now 
began the real trial. Five dignitaries — three eccle- 
siastical, the real inquisitors, and two laymen, a 
burgomaster of The Hague and the procurator-fiscal 
— were appointed to conduct the examination. Ic 
lasted that forenoon and all the afternoon till dark. 
The next day another session was held. Every 
argument that these men could think of failed to 
move him from his purpose to oppose the errors 
of Rome. Every appeal to Scripture authority re- 
sulted in triumph for the prisoner and in confusion 
to the inquisitors, who invariably sought to shift the 
argument adroitly over to the more convenient 
ground of the authority of the Church, but were 
not permitted to do so by the Reformer without 
instant exposure. He placed the right of the clergy 
to marry upon unassailable Scripture grounds, and 
demanded of them which was more likely, in the 
matter of practical results, to preserve the purity 
of the clergy — an honorable marriage or the un- 
limited profligacy in which many were known to 
live, but which was pardoned lightly at every con- 
fession, only to be indulged in again. To this un- 
answerable and legitimate argumentum ad hominem a 



182 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



coarse reply was made at a later period of the trial 
by the president of the Mechlin court, to the effect 
that he wished Pistorius had committed the crime 
in question ten times over rather than have married, 
for then he would have given them infinitely less 
trouble. 

After the examination which took place on the 
15th of July, Pistorius was remanded back to prison 
for a month. Meanwhile, the regent of the Nether- 
lands, Count Hoogstraaten, stadtholder of Holland, 
and the whole privy-council of the emperor Charles, 
had come to The Hague. To the three ecclesiasti- 
cal inquisitors — who were also professors of theology 
at Louvain — was now added the president of the 
supreme court at Mechlin. Four eminent lawyers 
were also invited to attend the next examination. 
This took place in the presence of these august per- 
sonages in the great hall of the court at The Hague. 
It effected no more satisfactory results than the pre- 
ceding trials. Pistorius remained firm. He was 
accordingly condemned to be strangled and his body 
to be burned at the stake. 

On the 15th of September, 1525, a large platform 
was erected in the centre of the so-called " inner 
court " (Binnenhof) in The Hague. The present 
Parliament buildings were formerly the residence 
of the counts of Holland, and later were occupied 
by the princes of Orange as chiefs of the Dutch re- 
public, and hence received the name of Prinsenhof, 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 183 



or " princes' palace." A martyrdom — political, in- 
deed, but largely the result of bitterness produced 
by controversies in the Protestant Church of Hol- 
land — was suffered here almost a century later, when 
on this same Binnenhof the head of Barneveld fell 
beneath the executioner's sword. Now, in 1525, 
various eminent ecclesiastical dignitaries clad in their 
full regalia, the professors from Louvain, the presi- 
dent of the imperial court, Count Hoogstraaten and 
the regent Margaret were seated in great state upon 
this platform. The ceremonies of the degradation 
of Pistorius from the priestly office were performed 
with their usual pomp. He was then clad in a 
yellow tunic ; a fool's cap of the same gaudy hue 
was placed upon his head, and thus arrayed he was 
led to the place of execution. This was located 
within a stone's throw of the prison gate, and was 
familiarly known as het Groene Zoodje (" the green 
sod"). Here, during several generations, was the 
spot where criminals breathed their last on the block 
or on the gallows, while it may now be identified by 
a stone post standing not far from the banks of the 
Vyver. 

Arrived here, Pistorius calmly mounted the pile 
of fagots and placed himself firmly against the iron 
stake in the centre. He adjusted the garrote around 
his neck with his own hands, and exclaimed, " O 
Death, where is thy sting ? O Grave, where is thy 
victory ? Death is swallowed up in victory through 



184 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Christ !" With a final prayer upon his lips for his 
enemies and for his own soul, he resigned himself 
to the executioner's hands, and was strangled to 
death. The fire was then kindled, and his body- 
was consumed to ashes. A contemporary writes of 
his death, " One would have thought from the ap- 
pearance of his countenance after the strangling 
that our martyr had fallen into a sweet sleep ; and 
this was really so, for he lives now, freed from all 
misery, with Christ, who since his confession of 
the name of Christ even unto his death never 
forsook him. May this strength also be imparted 
to us even until the end by that God who is to be 
praised above all through all eternity ! Amen." 1 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, pp. 100-128. The account here is the 
history of this martyrdom written by Gnapheus, rector of a 
Latin school at The Hague, and a friend and fellow-prisoner of 
Pistorius ; it was originally published in Latin. Brandt, in 
his Historie der Reformatie, devotes some pages to this martyr. 
There is also an interesting account of John Pistorius in Kev. 
M. G. Hansen's Reformed Church in the Netherlands, pp. 29-34. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE WIDOW WENDELMOET KLAASD CHTEB. 

IN the service of Christ there is "neither male 
nor female." The male child alone was formally 
consecrated, the men were directed to go up to the 
great feasts at Jerusalem under the Jewish dispen- 
sation; but in the Christian Church membership 
knows no such distinction. We are all equally in 
Christ and he is in us ; the Holy Spirit gives wis- 
dom and zeal to men and to women, and sanctifies 
activity in both. 

From the glorious army of martyrs the women 
have not been excluded. We read with mingled 
sentiments of horror and admiration of the fright- 
ful tortures so heroically endured by Blandina dur- 
ing the persecution of the churches of Vienne and 
Lyons, in France, under the emperor Antoninus, in 
the year 1 79. With equal courage the women and the 
maidens of Alexandria or Carthage sought the crown 
of martyrdom, until the bishops were compelled to 
check the undue eagerness wherewith the painful 
distinction was courted. We might have expected 
that the women of Holland would be found among 

185 



186 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



the ranks of the martyrs of the Reformation. That 
same spirit which made Amazons of the women of 
Haarlem in their defence of the city would enlist to 
fight the battles of the Lord Jesus Christ those who, 
like Mary and Martha, loved and followed him 
among the women of this devoted land. 

In the province of North Holland, on the shores 
of the Zuyder Zee, lies the small city of Monniken- 
dam. Seen from a great distance across the green 
and level country, it peeps at you through its walls 
of living verdure — the lofty trees that stand in 
double rows where formerly its ramparts frowned. 
On the side of the sea the town coyly retires from 
direct contact with it at the base of a shallow bay, 
but from its dykes or housetops can be seen that 
Paradise of Oddity, the island of Marken, lying 
far out and seemingly afloat upon the Zuyder Zee. 
Monnikendam was the birthplace of Wendelmoet 
Klaasdochter — or Wendelmoet, the daughter of 
Klaas — the first woman of Holland, and perhaps 
the first woman of Europe, who was martyred in 
the cause of the Reformation. History makes no 
mention of her till it describes her as a widow of 
Monnikendam and finds her incarcerated in the 
citadel of Woerden. Remains of that castle or 
citadel we thought we discovered on our visit to 
Woerden. Here, too, Pistorius had been confined. 
On the 15th of November, 1527, she was conveyed, 
a prisoner, to The Hague, there to be tried for 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 187 



heresy, and two days later Count Hoogstraaten, the 
stadtholder of Holland, arrived from Brussels in 
order to preside at her examination. Surely these 
cases of heresy were deemed of exceeding grave im- 
portance, since the highest dignitaries in Church and 
State must needs attend the trials of even the hum- 
blest offenders. But no more effective method for 
giving prominence, and therefore widespreading in- 
fluence, to their martyrdom could possibly have been 
adopted. The injury which the persecutors thus did 
to their own cause seemed a. veritable judgment of 
God upon their actions. 

On the 18th of November the stadtholder and 
the supreme court of Holland, in full assembly, 
caused the widow Wendelmoet to appear before 
them. Nothing daunted by the august array where- 
with she was confronted, she made answer plainly 
and firmly to the charges made against her. The 
questions put to her were met by replies which for 
quickness and pointed ness might almost be called 
sacred repartees. She was admonished to renounce 
her heretical opinions and threatened with the stake 
if she did not, while some one insinuated that she 
only despised death because she had never tasted it. 
" If this power of death has been given you from 
above," she said, " I am prepared to suffer. True, 
I have never tasted death, but I shall never taste of 
it, for Christ has said, 6 If a man keep my saying, he 
shall never taste of death/ " 



188 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



The specific accusation against Wendelmoet was 
that she had spoken sacrilegiously against the sac- 
rament of the Lord's Supper and profanely treated 
one of the elements ; for this she had been cast into 
prison and placed upon trial for her life. Naturally, 
therefore, an important part of the examination had 
reference to the sacrament and her opinions regard- 
ing it. The inquiries upon this point she encoun- 
tered with the prompt and pungent declaration, " I 
look upon your Host as mere bread or dough ; 
but if you consider it to be your God, then I tell 
you that it is your devil." It was announced to her, 
accordingly, after a few less important questions, 
that, since she remained steadfast in her blasphe- 
mous unbelief as touching the Host, sentence of 
death must be pronounced upon her. She was, 
therefore, urged to prepare herself for this ex- 
tremity by full confession to the priest, in order to 
obtain absolution. She was again ready with a 
telling scriptural answer. " Even now," she said, 
" I am no more alive, for I am crucified with 
Christ, yet Christ liveth within me by his Spirit. 
And I have made confession to Christ the Lord, 
who has taken away all my sins." Nevertheless, 
she begged that if she had offended any one she 
might be forgiven of such. 

The quick-witted and undaunted woman was 
now remanded to prison and placed in the stocks ; 
here she was exposed to annoyances and question- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



189 



ings by the populace. Among others, a simple- 
minded woman addressed her, lamenting her fate 
and saying, " Why not think what you please, but 
keep still about it? Then you wouldn't need to 
die like this." The heroic Christian gently an- 
swered, u Dear sister, I am commanded and called 
to speak forth what I believe ; therefore I am not 
permitted to keep silence." 

The next day but one was Sunday. A platform, 
as usual, was erected upon the Binnenhof, and be- 
fore the judges, thereupon seated with imposing 
dignity, the humble widow w T as bidden to stand 
and receive her sentence. After a futile attempt 
to obtain a promise to recant the sentence was read. 
It was to the effect that, since she had been proved 
in error regarding her belief in the sacrament and 
persisted in her blasphemous language against the 
Host, she was found guilty of heresy. Now took 
place that mockery so oft repeated since, which 
always formed a part of the auto-da-fe in Spain 
— the spiritual judge handing her over formally to 
the civil judge, to do with her what seemed unto 
him lawful and commending her to his clemency. 
This ecclesiastic then withdrew from the council, for 
by the law he could not, as a clerical member, take 
part in the deliberations involving a capital sen- 
tence. The result of these mock deliberations 
might readily be foreseen : having been proved 
guilty of heresy, she was declared guilty of death. 



190 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



The chancellor of the province therefore read the 
civil sentence that she should be burned to ashes 
and her goods confiscated. 

Wendelnioet was now led away to execution. A 
wretched monk troubled her exceedingly on the way 
by continually pressing a crucifix upon her that she 
might touch it with her lips, but she indignantly 
pushed the idolatrous symbol away from her. Ar- 
rived at the stake, a holy peace soothed her heart 
and made her countenance beam with a cheerful 
hope and an undoubted assurance of salvation. The 
sentence of the stake in those earlier days usually 
included the merciful provision that death by strang- 
ling should precede the burning of the body. This 
part of the sentence being now about to be executed 
upon her, she closed her eyes as if disposing herself 
for sleep, and her heroic soul w T as released from the 
body of clay. As soon as it was ascertained that 
she was dead the wood was kindled and her form 
was reduced to ashes. 

Thus the 20th of November, 1527, was made 
memorable. A " mother in Israel," an "elect lady," 
had maintained her faith before the great ones of the 
land and refused to deny her Lord even when con- 
fronted with the fear of violent death. She had 
added a woman's name to the list of those martyrs 
whose blood was to fertilize this soil for the vigor- 
ous growth of the Reformed Church of Holland. 



CHAPTER VII. 



WILLIAM OF ZWOLLE. 

THE city of Zwolle is situated in the province of 
Overyssel. To one perfectly familiar with the 
composition of the kingdom of Holland it is some- 
what embarrassing to speak of Hollanders when he 
means natives of provinces other than those of 
North and South Holland proper. The people of 
these provinces themselves somewhat resent being 
called " Hollanders," for they think only of the two 
provinces thus designated when that term is used. 
The name of the kingdom in Dutch is " Netherland 99 
(Nederland), and their own name for the people of 
the entire country is " Nether! anders." Still, in 
English and other tongues, the term " Holland 99 is 
so generally applied to the whole kingdom that it 
seems best, after the slight justice of these explana- 
tions, to continue to consider as " martyrs of Hol- 
land 99 those who were natives of any of the prov- 
inces constituting the republic of old and the king- 
dom at present. m 

At Zwolle, then, in Overyssel, was born the mar- 
tyr who forms the subject of our present chapter. 

191 



192 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



A circumstance like this — to have been the birth- 
place of one of these early witnesses for the Re- 
formed faith — seems to us to invest any town or vil- 
lage with interest. We know nothing of William's 
life at Zwolle, we cannot look upon the house 
wherein he first drew breath, yet the association of 
names is enough, and makes the city hold a promi- 
nent place in our recollections of Holland. 

In itself Zwolle is a city well worth a visit. 
It is perhaps one of the most beautiful of the 
kingdom as regards its suburbs and surroundings. 
Leaving the station, one walks along a broad grav- 
eled lane with brick sidewalks for pedestrians and 
lined on either side with rows of tall bushes and 
young trees. This lane soon leads us to a wide 
canal, or former moat, stretching away to the right 
and the left of us, winding about the city with the 
sharp curves necessitated by what were once the 
angles of the fortifications. Here we involunta- 
rily pause, viewing with delight the clear, glassy 
stream, its reflections of modern villas, its tree- 
bordered and grassy banks. To our right we per- 
ceive an ancient town-gate terminating in a lofty 
roof adorned with no less than five pointed turrets, 
the central turret provided with the never-failing 
clock and chimes. 

This relic of antiquity, which may have existed 
in the time of our martyr, naturally leads the 
thought to two other circumstances of an early date 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 193 



which certainly must have had an influence upon 
William in his early youth. Scarce three miles 
from this city stood the monastery of Mount St. 
Agnes, where Thomas a Kempis lived for sixty- four 
years, and here he wrote his imperishable Imitation 
of Christ Thomas could scarcely have been dead 
when William of Zwolle was born, and such a book 
as this must have come to the knowledge of the lat- 
ter ; for it is also to be remembered that in Zwolle 
was located one of those remarkable schools con- 
ducted by the Brethren of the Common Lot, and 
William, who afterward became a man of science 
and learning, most assuredly began his years of 
study in such a school, as was the case with Eras- 
mus. Among these almost evangelical, spiritually- 
minded brethren the Imitation must have found a 
ready welcome, and was doubtless hailed as a most 
useful aid in the religious education of the youth 
under their care. 

The first fact in William's history that comes 
prominently before us is that he enjoyed the distin- 
guished favor of Christian II., king of Denmark. 
This sovereign reigned from 1513 to 1523, and we 
are told that he appointed William superintendent 
or governor of his fortifications. 1 Why should such 
a position have been offered a man whose claim to 
memory depends upon a martyrdom for religious 
beliefs which he could defend with dialectic skill ? 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 140. 

13 



194 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Possibly he had become noted at the University of 
Louvain — where almost all the scholars of the Neth- 
erlands received their academic training — for attain- 
ments and proficiency in mathematical science, and 
for this cause his services were required by the Dan- 
ish king to construct or perfect the fortifications 
within his realm. Whatsoever were the reasons 
for his elevation, whatever his peculiar office there 
signified, he found in Denmark that which was far 
better than all earthly distinctions or the favor of 
the princes of this world. 

There was no country of Europe where the Eef- 
ormation made such rapid strides as here. The suc- 
cessor of Christian II., Frederick I., whose reign 
began in 1523, openly embraced the new faith, and 
showed himself vastly in advance of his age by is- 
suing an edict tolerating equally the Reformed and 
the Romish churches. Under these influences the 
truth of God soon made its way into the heart of 
the high functionary of the Crown, the skilled and 
celebrated engineer who had been called from a for- 
eign country to these important duties in Denmark. 
The teachings of earlier years, the pious medita- 
tions of A Kempis and the practical and consist- 
ent Christianity of the Brethren of the Common Lot 
were but the prophecy and preparation of the better 
apprehension of Christ and his gospel which Luther 
had been preaching in the ears of Christendom. 
William warmly professed an agreement w^ith the 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 195 



Reformer's doctrines. Nor did he do this under 
the fostering care of a sovereign's smiles only : he 
seems to have returned to his native country after 
his patron's successor had mounted the throne, and 
within these more perilous regions, trembling be- 
neath the rod of their sovereign, Charles V., he none 
the less freely spoke of his new-found faith ; he wit- 
nessed to the power of that faith to save men with- 
out the superfluous paraphernalia that needlessly and 
ruinously encumbered the faith of the papal Church. 
As a result of this course he very soon found him- 
self in the clutches of the Inquisition. By an act 
of willful despotism breaking through every right 
and every privilege previously granted, the noted 
Charles the Bold — an ancestor of Charles V. — had 
placed the supreme court of the provinces at the 
city of Mechlin, halfway between Antwerp and 
Brussels. Thus natives or residents could no longer, 
as formerly, be tried in their own province, but 
must be removed to a court at a distance from 
their surroundings. Hence, to Mechlin, on a charge 
of heresy, was William of Zwolle brought in the year 
1529. It was at the instance of the theologians of 
Lou vain that the charge was preferred and the 
arrest made ; to them, accordingly, was committed 
the duty of conducting the examination. 

We are in possession of certain details of this trial 
which will not only give us an interesting insight 
into the modes of conducting these proceedings 



196 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



against heretics, but will also afford an instructive 
view of the frivolous questions that were put to 
them, yet the answer to which might result either 
in acquittal or in a death amid frightful torments. 

William of Zwolle was required to answer in 
writing, at the end of twelve days, a series of eight 
articles, also submitted in written form. These were 
as follows: "1. Whether a Christian is at liberty 
to take an oath when the magistrate demands it of 
him. 2. What is the extent of the authority of the 
pope. 3. Whether there is not a purgatory where 
souls after this life are tormented. 4. Whether de- 
parted saints ought to be adored. 5. Whether it is 
not sufficient to receive the sacrament under one 
form. 6. Whether it is lawful to eat butter, eggs or 
meat on days when it is prohibited. 7. Whether 
those who have made vows of celibacy are obliged 
to keep their vows. 8. Whether men ought not to 
obey the commands of the Church and the emperor 
which forbid them to buy, possess and read Lu- 
theran books." 1 

It will not be necessary to mention the several 
answers the prisoner made to these propositions, as 
it is too obvious in this our day what he must have 
said from a scriptural standpoint. In the matter 
of purgatory, he said he would rather perish than 
believe in one : a sincere Christian, when he dies, is 
assured of salvation, while one who believes not is 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 140. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 197 



condemned ; hence masses for the soul can avail for 
no one. To the seventh point he replied that he 
could not discover in Scripture that a state of celi- 
bacy was enjoined of God — that, therefore, this was 
a merely human ordinance, because without the sup- 
port of his word. Hence it was perfectly lawful to 
abandon the monastic life. 

The question in regard to Luther's books and 
their prohibition by church and civil law had in it 
some such covert and subtle assault as that of the 
scribes and Pharisees when they asked the Lord 
concerning the tribute to Caesar. The first placard, 
published in 1521, had been succeeded by a second 
one, even more severe, published on September 25, 
1525, ten days after the martyrdom of John Pis- 
torius, and this had been followed by a third one 
on July 17, 1526. The one of 1525 forbade public 
or private gatherings to read or to speak about the 
Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, and other spiritual 
writings. Stimulated by this new deliverance from 
so high a quarter, persecutions increased. " In Hol- 
land the scaffold began to smoke at a great rate," says 
Brandt, in his quiet manner, " by the zeal of those 
who were better calculated to burn heretics than to 
dispute with them." But in this same year arose 
the unfortunate sacramental quarrel between Luther 
and Zwinglius " which retarded the progress of the 
Reformation much more than all the devices, pla- 
cards, dungeons, swords, gallows and stakes where- 



198 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



with the papacy armed itself against it." 1 The 
placard of 1526, after repeating the prohibitions of 
previous placards, specified "the books of Luther, 
Pomeranus, Carlstadt, Melanchthon, GEcolampadius, 
Franciscus Lamberti, Justus Jonas, and others of 
his adherents or sympathizers." 2 This, therefore, 
bore directly upon the case of William of Zwolle, 
and it was sought to place him in a position of dis- 
obedience to the scriptural command to be subject 
to the higher powers. He replied to the question 
submitted to him, " I have read these [books], not 
because I despised the authority of the emperor, but 
only that I might know what was good in them and 
what evil, and especially that I might distinguish 
the truth from human doctrine and imaginations, so 
that I might reject these." 3 

The result of the investigation could easily be 
foreseen : the unpardonable crime of heresy was 
readily proved against William from the expression 
of these sentiments. The inquisitors delivered him 
over to the secular arm, and the sentence against 
heresy was executed upon him. He was burned at 
the stake on October 20, 1529. 4 No particulars of 
his martyrdom have come down to us, but during 
the interval between the close of the trial by the in- 
quisitors and his execution he composed in prison a 

1 Brandt. 2 Brandt, Histor. der Reform., Vol. I. p. 100. 

3 Groot 3Iartelaarsboek, p. 141. 

4 Ibid, ; Brandt, op. cit, p. 103. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 199 



more detailed statement of his answers to the several 
points submitted to him, and this document, which 
gave evidence of much learning and piety, was pub- 
lished by the Reformer Bugenhagen (or Pomeranus) 
at Wittenberg. 1 

1 Groot Martdaarsboek, p. 141. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



TEUNIS TEEKSEN OF NAABDEN. 

IN our previous accounts of martyrs it has abun- 
dantly appeared that their trials were conducted 
on an elaborate scale in the presence of the highest 
dignitaries of the land, and lasted sometimes through 
months of time. A fourth placard was signed by 
the emperor at Brussels on October 14, 1529, a few 
days before the martyrdom last noticed ; this sought 
to obviate the tediousness of these proceedings. It 
was ordered "that those w y ho were empowered to 
execute this placard should go about it without long 
process, but as summarily as in reasonableness and 
fairness this might be done." 1 The punishment 
of heretics was thus to mend its pace and descend 
more swiftly, if not more surely, and in order to se- 
cure their persons a bait was held out to the accuser : 
the confiscated property of the heretic was to be 
divided equally between the State and the informant. 

But the very frequency wherewith these placards 
were issued, since each was a virtual repetition of the 
other, with few additional provisions, showed that 
1 Brandt, His. der Refor., I. p. 103. 

200 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 201 



special urgency on the part of the emperor was 
necessary to ensure the carrying out of the behests 
of the Inquisition. The hunting down and killing 
of heretics were extremely unpopular in the north- 
ern provinces; often the very officers of the gov- 
ernment were in sympathy with the victims they 
were compelled to prosecute and condemn. We 
will find an illustration of this in the case now 
before us. 

The next martyr whose name has been preserved 
from oblivion from among the hundreds who then 
suffered directs our attention to the city of ISTaarden, 
in North Holland, this being his native town. Naar- 
den is a very little city, but it has an important 
place in history, for it gave occasion to one of the 
worst exhibitions of perfidy and cruelty which have 
disgraced the name of Spain. On their march to the 
siege of Haarlem, in 1572, the Spaniards here met 
with but a momentary resistance to their demand 
for surrender. The citizens repented, the foe was 
admitted, pardon was pledged, and all seemed peace, 
when the horde of butchers fell upon a gathering of 
unarmed citizens crowding a small church and massa- 
cred every one of them. But forty of all the inhabi- 
tants escaped the murderous assaults which were then 
made all through the town. When these inhuman 
wretches left the city, it was totally depopulated and 
a mass of blackened ruins. To-day the building 
which stands where the church stood is still indi- 



202 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



cated by a representation of the scene of carnage 
which here took place, carved in stone, in partial 
relief, over the main entrance. Here, then, was a 
wholesale martyrdom endured by an entire city. 
No doubt the adherence to the Reformation which 
provoked it was the result of the teachings and 
labors of the two men who years before had been 
added to the list of Dutch martyrs from the bur- 
ghers of this town, for, besides the subject of this 
chapter, we read of one Antony Fredericks, who in 
1525 preached the Reformed doctrines in Naarden 
with such success that among other prominent con- 
verts he counted a Romish priest and pastor and 
the assistant rector of a Latin school. 1 In a mar- 
ginal note Brandt adds, " This one was subsequently 
put to death." This is all the record we have of 
him. 

Teunis Teeksen had distinguished himself by his 
accomplishments and his learning during along course 
of study at the University of Louvain, in Belgium. 
On his return to Naarden he abandoned himself to a 
life of reckless self-indulgence, engaging in a round 
of unlawful pleasures, the hero and leader of a large 
circle of boon-companions. 2 Early in the year 1530 
he met with a singular experience. In company 
with several of his friends, presumably bent upon 
some scheme of wild revelry, he was proceeding 

1 Brandt, His. der Ref., Vol. I. p. 92. 

2 Oroot Martelaarsboek, p. 142. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 203 



along the road outside the town, when he was sud- 
denly struck to the earth by an invisible hand ; he 
was picked up for dead and was carried to his home 
by four of his companions. On recovering conscious- 
ness the evil of his course of life struck him with 
painful force; he accepted the singular attack of 
bodily illness as a visitation and warning of Prov- 
idence, and resolved to reform his conduct. But a 
greater change than even this implied was also to 
be wrought in his experience. As Brandt remarks 
with suggestive brevity, " after this he begat an ab- 
horrence of wickedness, and at the same time of the 
papacy." He had pursued his studies with a view 
to the priesthood ; when he had mended his ways, 
he did not carry out this original intention, but 
utilized his talents and learning in the study of 
the pure word of God. His religious convictions 
became one with those of the Reformed faith, and 
he openly joined their ranks. Previous to his stud- 
ies at the university he had learned the trade of 
boxmaker, and he now resumed this handicraft, 
freely distributing his earnings among the poor, as 
he possessed a small fortune sufficient for his sup- 
port. To these ministrations among the needy in 
temporal things he joined the ministration of the 
truth of God, and he soon was eagerly sought by a 
large following, who learned from him the way of 
God's salvation as he had been constrained by the 
Holy Spirit to accept it himself. He directed his 



204 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



teachings more particularly against the Romish doc- 
trine of the Mass, and also made prominent his dis- 
like of the multitudinous holy days appointed in 
honor of the respective saints. He became, of 
course, at once the object of hatred and persecution 
on the part of the adherents of Rome. Complaints 
were made against him to the authorities, and he 
was cited to give an account of his conduct, and 
to repair to Amsterdam for that purpose. But 
throughout we are struck with the astonishing le- 
niency wherewith he was treated. If we read the 
placards that were then flooding the country, which 
had followed one another within a year or two in 
such rapid succession that the ink of the one was 
scarce dry before another was already promulgated, 
we should have expected a very summary and severe 
disposal of Teeksen's case. Such would have hap- 
pened in the southern provinces ; such celerity of 
judgment was but too frequently witnessed in all 
parts of the land forty years later, when Alva's 
rule of terror oppressed the people. But now it 
was happily different. 

Teeksen went to Amsterdam accompanied by a 
friend ; they traveled together, with no officer of 
justice to interfere with their movements, as if they 
had gone on an errand of business or pleasure. 
Teeksen reported himself at the house of the procu- 
rator-general, whose name was Brunt. He informed 
him that he was the person from Xaarden whom 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



205 



Brunt had summoned to appear before hirn, and 
" that he had come partly to defend the truth and 
partly to convince his accusers of error." A long 
and most amicable conversation ensued between this 
high dignitary of the court of Holland and the ac- 
cused, in the course of which the former did not 
hesitate to impart in confidence to the heretic before 
him that he shared his opinions about the Mass, but 
that he could not avow them and retain his position. 
He then told Teeksen to return to his home and 
await a further summons. 

With renewed zeal and confidence Teeksen ad- 
dressed himself to the dissemination of a pure gospel. 
The Mass, indulgences, pilgrimages, adoration of 
saints, were attacked and denounced by him with 
vigorous and convincing eloquence, and the spread 
of the Reformed faith was much promoted. This, 
added to his easy escape from the hands of the civil 
judge, sorely incensed the enemies of the truth. At 
times the zealous preacher would be met by bands 
of men who pelted him with stones, but, finding that 
this had not the desired effect, they once more laid 
accusations against him before the court of Holland. 
The procurator-general, being requested to summon 
the bold heretic, dared not refuse to heed this de- 
mand, and despatched a constable to Naarden to 
conduct him to The Hague. But even now he sent 
a private message by the very officer w T ho was to ar- 
rest him, advising him to quit Naarden, so as to 



206 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



avoid giving offence to his enemies., and thereby 
escape a trial. Teeksen, however, could not heed 
such advice, and cheerfully rode along with the con- 
stable to The Hague. He told his friends that he 
felt the hour of his sacrifice was near, but that he 
rejoiced therein, for he would the sooner be at the 
marriage- feast of the Lamb, where Christ, the Bride- 
groom, was awaiting him. Arrived at The Hague, 
he was at once conducted to the Prison-Gate and 
secured in one of the cells. While thus confined he 
was allowed free intercourse with any one who 
wished to converse with him ; this could readily be 
done by reason of the manner in which the cells 
were constructed, as described in a former chapter. 
Accordingly, he was visited by many persons of all 
ranks, even by noblemen. The baron of Assendelft 
was prominent among the latter in his endeavors to 
change his opinions. But Teeksen replied that those 
who willfully departed from or renounced the truth 
were guilty of the sin against the Holy Ghost, which 
could not be forgiven either here or hereafter. He 
also maintained boldly that men ought not to be 
ashamed of the word of Christ, and constantly re- 
minded these well-meaning disputants of the decla- 
ration of the Master : " Whosoever therefore shall 
be ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulter- 
ous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son 
of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of 
his Father with the holy angels." Although they 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 207 



could not move him from his faith, these persistent 
friends would gladly have aided him in an escape 
from prison, and through their influence actually 
procured him at one time an easy opportunity to 
effect this. But he refused to avail himself of it, on 
the ground that he had been imprisoned for no mis- 
demeanor except that he had preached the word of 
God, which he would not acknowledge to be such. 
Yet the conduct of these citizens and noblemen of 
Holland showed conclusively and to their lasting 
honor how much they disliked the persecution of 
heretics, though themselves attached to the Romish 
Church, 

At last the formal trial of Teeksen took place. 
The principal accusation against him was based on 
the attacks upon the Mass which had prominently 
marked his teachings. He could not be convinced 
of error in this conduct, nor be moved to abandon 
such teachings. He was now remanded to prison 
and forbidden all intercourse with friends, as also 
the use of writing-materials. After another long 
interval he was declared guilty of heresy and con- 
demned to be burned at the stake. 

The firmness and courage of Teunis Teeksen did 
not desert him on the trying day of execution, which 
occurred toward the close of 1530. An expression 
of holy joy beamed from his countenance. Arrived 
at the stake, he deliberately removed his shoes and 
stockings and bestowed them upon some poor people 



208 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



standing near. As the fires advanced he sang a 
hymn familiar to the Reformed of those days, be- 
ginning " I'm but a lambkin on the heath/' the im- 
port of which was much like that of our own " I 
was a wandering sheep." And finally, with thanks- 
giving to God upon his lips and the glad hope and 
assurance of salvation in his heart, he breathed his 
last in the midst of the consuming flames. 



CHAPTER IX. 



JOEIAAN KETEL ; OR, THE ANABAPTIST MAR- 
TYRS. 

IT would be eminently unfair in treating of the 
martyrs of Holland to omit all mention of that 
peculiar sect which furnished hundreds of victims 
to the persecuting fury of the Church of Rome in 
Holland. Their actions and their practices were 
often wildly extravagant, and even wicked ; never- 
theless, there were not found wanting among them 
those who witnessed a good confession in the hour 
of trial, and who endured tortures and death with a 
heroic faith in Christ. 

We read in Brandt's History that a certain bur- 
gher of Deventer, in Overyssel, Joriaan Ketel, was 
arrested and imprisoned in the spring of the year 
1544. The charge against him was that he was a 
follower of David Joris and had printed his Won- 
derbook. We naturally inquire who this David 
Joris was and what his Wonderbooh signified. 

The first martyr of the Anabaptist sect was also 
one of its two founders, and was, moreover, the first 
to experience that those of the Reformed faith could 

14 209 



210 A CHUBCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



persecute as well as suffer persecution. His name 
was Felix Mants. He preached the novel doctrines 
at Zurich, in Switzerland, in 1522, and encountered 
the opposition of no less a person than Zwinglius 
himself. The controversy was ended by the drown- 
ing of Mants according to the formula ascribed to 
Zwinglius: "Qui iterum mergit, mergatur" (" He 
who rebaptizes with water shall be drowned in 
water "*). In the year 1527 the doctrines of the 
Anabaptists were introduced into Holland, and in 
this same year three of these sectaries were roasted 
to death over a slow fire in The Hague. 

Sad to say, the development of wild and wicked ex- 
travagance among these people seems to have been 
due to one or two individuals of Holland birth. 
One John Matthewson of Haarlem, and a certain 
John Bokelson of Leyden, added to the new teachings 
concerning baptism the doctrine of an earthly king- 
dom. This, they said, the Lord was about to estab- 
lish, and meantime they proclaimed themselves the 
kings of Zion in his stead. As a preliminary step 
they made themselves masters of the city of Miinster, 
in Germany, not far from the borders of Holland. 
Here they assumed royal pomp and arrogated to 
themselves the privilege of David and Solomon in 
multiplying their wives to an indefinite extent. 
When the bishop of Miinster regained his capital, 
these deceivers met with a terrible fate. The sect 
1 Brandt, His. der Reform., I. p. 101. Thus Brandt translates. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



211 



had been brought into great disrepute by these trans- 
actions, and the Reformed in general suffered by the 
scandals which these sectaries occasioned, for polyg- 
amy was not confined to the chiefs or kings only, 
but was practiced and defended throughout the sect ; 
and this principle degenerated finally into the advo- 
cacy and indulgence of the most shameless orgies of 
free love. 

Divisions, meantime, had arisen among the Ana- 
baptists, and some disapproved of the attempts of the 
followers of John of Leyden to establish an earthly 
kingdom. After the latter had perished, and his 
kingdom with him, a certain Anabaptist preacher 
made himself prominent by his efforts to reconcile 
parties within the sect. This was David Joris, a 
native of Delft. He succeeded in getting together 
representatives of the different views, and laid be- 
fore them a certain formula of concord, which they 
signed. He followed this up by publishing a little 
book treating of the differences that existed, and by 
attempting to heal them. But for the most part his 
endeavors only gained him the enmity of both par- 
ties. Ere this he had enjoyed the highest esteem 
among the Anabaptists. While yet at Delft, before 
he began his career as a preacher, his tongue had 
been pierced for certain bold words against the Mass 
and the priesthood. After being ordained by an 
Anabaptist preacher he acquired a reputation by 
composing and publishing several hymns or songs 



212 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



of a religious nature based mainly on Bible stories. 
That he was held in great estimation by the Ana- 
baptists of Mtinster appears from the preaching of 
the twenty-six apostles whom their king sent out 
to convert and conquer the world. They declared 
that four prophets had arisen since the days of 
Christ — two true ones, John of Ley den and David 
of Delft, and two false ones, the Pope of Rome and 
Martin Luther. 

Failing in his efforts at reconciliation, and there- 
by losing his influence among his fellow-believers, 
Joris became the founder of a new sect, for whose 
enlightenment he wrote several books — among them, 
the Wonderbooh. These works he composed in re- 
tirement at Basel, in Switzerland, where he lived in 
great comfort, supported by the liberal donations 
of his devoted followers, until his death in 1556. 
The doctrines which formed the basis of this new 
sect were the most unblushing blasphemy. Joris 
taught "that the doctrines of the Old and New Testa- 
ments were incomplete and unavailing to save those 
who accepted them, but that his were perfect and 
efficacious ; that he was the true Christ and Messiah, 
the beloved Son of the Father, not born of the flesh, 
but of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ. To him was given the power to save or to 
condemn, to forgive or to retain sins, and at one time 
the whole w T orld would be judged by him. All sins 
against the Father and Son would be forgiven, but 



MAERYBS OF HOLLAND. 



213 



not the sin against the Holy Ghost — that is, against 
David Joris. Marriage was free, and no one con- 
fined by it to one woman." The Wonderbook, if 
once read by theologians, councilors of sovereigns, 
kings and princes, would cause them to exclaim, in 
the words of Isaiah, " Lo, this is our God ; we have 
waited for him, and he will save us." His adher- 
ents were somewhat taken aback by his death, but 
they cherished the conviction that he would rise 
from his grave within three years and then advance 
to the conquest of the world — not by the sword, but 
by the power of his teachings. His body did in- 
deed leave the grave at the end of those years, but 
it was by the hands of the executioner, who was or- 
dered to consign it to the flames. 

Yet for such a man and in devotion to such doc- 
trines was endured a martyrdom as noble and as 
heroic as any for the true faith, and we shall not 
understand thoroughly the condition and spirit of 
those times if we do not take this fact into consider- 
ation or if we refuse to accord the crown of martyr- 
dom to Joriaan Ketel. As we have already stated, 
he had been arrested because he had printed the 
Wonderbook. His name had been given to the 
authorities by a member of an Anabaptist sect dif- 
ferent from his own — one who had taken advantage 
of these sectarian divisions to ease his tortures while 
under examination by betraying heretics of another 
stripe. Ketel confessed that he was one of the ad- 



214 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 

herents of David Joris's new sect, that he had sus- 
tained intimate relations to Joris, that he had read 
his books, copied his manuscripts, printed them and 
conveyed them to several parts of the country, his 
only regret being that he had not done more of this 
work. In order to force him to divulge the where- 
abouts of David Joris — who was living under an 
assumed name at Basel — and others of his sect, he 
was put to the torture four or five times, until his 
body had become a perfect wreck. But he mentioned 
no names except those of such of his brethren as 
had gone to Embden and other places in East Fries- 
land, in Germany. He maintained in the presence 
of his judges : " David Joris has taught me nothing 
except that which is good — namely, the word of 
God ; all his doctrines he proved to me by the di- 
vine Scriptures, and he admonished me that I should 
mortify the old man with his evil lusts." It was 
undoubtedly true that this follower of David Joris, 
for one, had learned that lesson. Brandt remarks 
that it seemed as if Ketel had gathered all that was 
good out of the teachings of his master : " Some 
imagined that the virtue of this one disciple justified 
the master in all things else. This death brought 
David Joris many adherents." While in prison 
Ketel wrote to his children a letter full of godly 
admonitions and breathing a spirit of patience and 
gentleness. When his sentence had been read to 
him, he removed his bonnet and said reverently, 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 215 



" The Lord be praised for evermore." He was 
sentenced to be beheaded on the 9th of August, 1544. 
Arrived at the place of execution, he addressed the 
bystanders : " My dear and worthy citizens, I pray 
you do not take it in evil part that I appear so 
cheerful." He prayed aloud to God, saying, "O 
God, if it were possible that I should rise after this 
death, and I might then die a second time for this 
truth of the God of heaven, thou knowest, O my 
God, that my heart would delight in this and do it 
with all gladness." Finally, he bore witness to his 
faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and that the 
ground of it was fixed upon the doctrines of the 
apostles and prophets. He claimed the same for 
the faith of David Joris, and was willing to seal 
that conviction with his blood. When the officer 
of justice presiding at his execution remarked that 
David Joris was the most wicked heretic upon earth, 
Joriaan replied, " The day of the Lord will reveal 
who of us twain has judged him aright." Then he 
kneeled down before the block and received the 
death-stroke. 1 

Whatever we may think of the merits or the de- 
merits of the curious sect of the Anabaptists, there 
was no class of religious sectaries opposed to Rome 
who furnished more victims to the fire and the 
sword of persecution. On almost every page of the 
martyrology of Holland, by whomsoever written, 
1 Brandt, Histor. der Reform., Vol. I. pp. 144, 145. 



216 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



whether by authors of their own or by those of 
other sects, we read of men and women by the five, 
ten, dozen or score at a time put to death in one or 
another place by drowning, burning, hanging or 
burying alive. In Rotterdam a whole conventicle 
was betrayed, and forthwith executed by being 
placed in boats and so pushed under the thick ice 
and drowned. One and thirty here, six and thirty 
there, forty or more at a third place, were repeatedly 
sacrificed at one fell blow ; for they were assailed 
from all sides, and were pursued by the Reformed, 
where they had the power, with as great good-will 
as by the incensed Romanists. 

From these numberless martyrdoms we select one 
more, as illustrative of the really genuine Chris- 
tian principle which at times could actuate these 
people. 

Dirk Williamson, a burgher of Asperen, a vil- 
lage in South Holland, near the borders of Gelder- 
land, having been accused of holding the Anabaptist 
doctrines, an officer was sent to arrest him. Knowl- 
edge of this fact reached Dirk just in time to enable 
him to make his escape from the house before the 
officer arrived. He ran with all his might, closely 
pursued by the latter. It was early in the winter, 
and there had been hardly frost enough to cover the 
rivers and the canals with a coating of ice such as 
could bear the weight of a man. Still, in his ex- 
tremity the poor Anabaptist ventured to cross a 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



217 



small stream that lay in his path. He safely reached 
the other side, although the ice bent under his hur- 
rying footsteps. His pursuer was not so fortunate : 
the ice gave way, and he fell into the water. Hear- 
ing the man's cries, Williamson looked back, and 
perceived that his pursuer could not possibly extri- 
cate himself from his perilous position. In the 
spirit of the true Christian, wishing to return good 
for evil, the persecuted heretic came back upon the 
ice and at the imminent risk of his own life saved 
that of the constable. The latter accordingly omit- 
ted to effect the arrest wherewith he was charged, 
and allowed Dirk Williamson to go back unmolested 
to his home. But the authorities did not share their 
officer's gratitude. He was commanded, on pain of 
death for dereliction of duty, to proceed once more 
to the arrest. This he did, and on the 16th of May, 
1570, the noble-hearted Dirk Williamson paid the 
penalty for his self-sacrificing and Christian gener- 
osity. He breathed his last under the most excruci- 
ating and lingering tortures at the stake. 1 

In justice to the Anabaptists, it must be said that 
a pure form of evangelical doctrine untainted by 
any notions of earthly empire to be founded by 
violence, unsullied by any impure teachings or prac- 
tices concerning the marriage state, was promulgated 
with great success and spiritual power by Menno 
Simons, a converted Frisian priest, who died in 
1 Brandt, His. der Refwm., I. p. 500. 



218 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



1561 ;* and during the Eighty Years' War the Ana- 
baptist congregations were among the earliest to 
contribute of their slender means to the support 
of the cause of William of Orange. 

1 Hansen's Ref. Ch. in Netherlands, pp. 42-50. 



CHAPTER X. 



ANGEL US MERTJLA, THE BENEVOLENT PRIEST, 
fXN the 26th of July, 1886, we took the steamer 



^ from Rotterdam to Brille. We had selected this 
date for such a trip with a purpose, as will appear im- 
mediately. A sail along the broad Maas and among 
the islands formed by its several branches brought 
us in a little less than two hours to the above-men- 
tioned city. It was an historic shrine to us for more 
than one reason. Here, on April 1, 1572, the first 
stronghold of liberty was wrenched from the hands 
of Spain by the invincible " Water-Beggars," and 
as the modern fortifications completely surrounding 
the place with high walls became patent to our 
attentive gaze we imagined that we saw Brille 
nearly as it must have looked on that fortunate 
"April Fool's day" when " Alva's spectacles were 
taken away." 1 After looking up some memorials 

1 Motley mentions the rhymes : 




" Op den eersten April 
Verloor Alva zyn Brilj" 



which he translates correctly enough : 



"On April's Fool's day- 
Duke Alva's spectacles were taken away.' 



219 



220 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



of this event we bent our footsteps to pursue the 
other errand which had led us to select just this 
day for the visit. 

We inquired after the orphan asylum ; we were 
directed to two. One is located in the principal 
street leading past the city-hall; it is called the 
Geuzen Gesticht, or " Beggars' Institute/' and was 
erected or founded in 1872 to commemorate the 
three hundredth anniversary of the taking of the 
city by the patriot navy. The other asylum, we 
were told, was near the " great/' or St. Catharine, 
church. The first prominent object that had engaged 
our attention as we entered the river Maas with the 
steamer from America had been this very church ; 
its high roof and broad tower had loomed up on 
the view far above the city and the surrounding 
country. As now we stood beside it we noticed 
that it had never been completed; the nave had 
been carried only as far as the transept, and half 
the capitals of the two final columns projected be- 
yond the rear wall. The church and the tower 
were built of brick and looked a little the worse 
for wear. The tower was perfectly square from top 
to bottom and singularly broad ; it seemed to us it 
must have measured from forty to fifty feet in each 
direction. At a distance of some hundred feet 
obliquely to the left of this tower we perceived a 

The play is upon the name of the city, which resembles the 
Dutch word for spectacles. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



221 



peculiar building. A small front yard, or garden, 
adorned with flower-beds and sods, was shut off 
from the street by a fine, tall iron fence, undoubt- 
edly modern. The front of the house also looked 
modern and was stuccoed in imitation of stone, but 
its quaint tiled roof betrayed its more ancient char- 
acter and gave the lie to its modern countenance. 
We suspected that this was the object of our search. 
We tried the iron fence, but found its gates closed 
against us, and the ringing of the bell produced no 
reply. But our efforts brought a dozen heads out of 
the doors of as many lowly cottages which stretched 
in a continuous row to the left along a narrow, un- 
paved path to the fortifications beyond. Inquiring 
whether this was the orphan asylum, we received an 
affirmative answer, and asking, thereupon, why no 
one was at home, we received the information that 
to-day was Merle-feest ("the Merula celebration "), 
and that all the inmates had gone early that morn- 
ing on an excursion to Rotterdam. 

Merle-feest — the Merula celebration ! Did these 
honest Dutch housewives know what they were say- 
ing? Did they reflect that the witness of three hun- 
dred years to the truth of history was in their words ? 
We stood and looked upon those walls and repeated 
their simple words again and again to ourselves, and 
a 26th of July of years and years ago, with all its 
attendant circumstances of sadness and misery, came 
to our minds with a vividness as if we had ourselves 



222 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



lived at that earlier date and had looked upon the 
scene of woe with our own eyes. On the 26th of 
July, 1557, the founder of this asylum, Angelus 
Merula, or Engel Merle, had died the death of a 
martyr ; and even as in the days of the primitive 
Church the dates of the martyrdom of believers 
were kept as holy days, as if they were the birth- 
days of their glory and happiness, so this day had 
been kept ever since 1557 by the inmates of this 
institution, and now, on July 26, 1886, we were 
informed it was the Merula feast and the orphans 
were away celebrating it — celebrating it in modern 
fashion, too ; indeed, in the American fashion of 
a steamboat excursion — a picnic to Rotterdam — 
but, nevertheless, even in this modern way honor- 
ing the past and linking the present reverently 
and lovingly to it. 

\Te will not apologize for this long digression ; 
we do not wish to think of these martyrs of Holland 
as so very far removed from us in time or in space. 
We shall profit the more by a perusal of their heroic 
firmness and deathless loyalty to the faith we also 
hold dear if we can feel that they are near us — that 
they are brethren with us of the household of faith. 
And when, in any of the ways which we have indi- 
cated throughout these chapters — by standing on the 
very ground which they trod, by looking upon the 
very dungeon walls which witnessed their agony and 
their courage, or by some such realistic connection 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 223 



with events in their history as we have just noted — 
we find even the serious element of time removed, 
as it were, the barrier of ages leveled between us, — 
it is so much easier to realize what they suffered and 
how they endured that they might leave to us the 
heritage of a pure gospel and the liberty to worship 
God in accordance with its principles. 

The story of Angelus Merula is one of special 
interest, significance and instructiveness ; there is 
none that illustrates more forcibly the fierce hatred 
wherewith the Church of Rome looked upon even 
the purest and holiest endeavors, consistent with en- 
tire and devoted loyalty to herself, to let in the light 
of truth upon some of her most obvious departures 
from scriptural doctrine. 

Angelus Merula (Latinized from the Dutch, En- 
gel Merle) was born in the city of Brille in 1482, 
thus a year before the birth of Luther. He was of 
respectable family, nearly allied to the nobility and 
possessed of great wealth. He was sent to complete 
his studies at the University of Paris, where he spent 
four years, attaining the degrees of master of arts 
and bachelor or licentiate of theology. In the year 
1511 he returned to his native country, and was or- 
dained to the priesthood in the " dom," or cathedral 
church, of Utrecht. At that time he was already 
noted for his " excellent piety and learning, joined 
to great zeal," 1 and the lord (baron) of Kruningen 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 490. 



224 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



and Heenvliet invited him to become pastor of the 
church of the village of Heenvliet. This village is 
situated but a few miles to the east of his native 
city of Brille, and on the same island — that of East 
Voorne, now Voorne-Putten. He labored in this 
humble field for more than forty years, diligently 
instructing his people in the truth of God as it 
seemed proper for him to teach it, giving himself to 
an impartial, prayerful and simple study of the word 
of God itself. And, being so near his native town, 
he at the same time gave much attention to a wise 
bestowal of his abundant wealth ; he founded, built 
and liberally endowed the orphan asylum, which is 
still in existence, and erected several comfortable 
dwelling-houses for the better and more healthful 
accommodation of the poor of the city. 

It does not appear that this worthy and benevo- 
lent priest at any time had read or distinctly avowed 
acceptance of the writings of Luther; indeed, he 
commenced to pursue a course of evangelical teach- 
ing almost immediately after his settlement at Heen- 
vliet, in 1512, and thus long before the work of 
Luther had begun. He discovered the errors of 
Rome in the same manner as did the great Reformer 
— by the simple study of the Bible. It does not seem 
to have entered his thoughts at any time, as it did 
not at first occur to Luther, that in order to combat 
those errors and restore the pure doctrines of the 
gospel he needed to sever himself from the Church 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



225 



or to act in opposition to her. He went about his 
ordinary duties as priest and pastor, and in pursuance 
of these introduced what seemed to him necessary 
corrections in the inculcation of divine truths. For 
instance, the formula of the Mass for All Saints' day 
contained the prayer, " Almighty, eternal God, thou 
who hast permitted us to celebrate the merits of all 
the saints upon one holy day, we beseech thee to 
abundantly vouchsafe to us the expected fullness of 
thine atonement through the multitude of these medi- 
ators" Merula changed the expressions in italics 
so as to read " celebrate the glory of all the saints " 
and "through the intercession of thine only-be- 
gotten Son alone, who is the praise and glory 
of all the saints." 1 In his sermons, too, he took 
occasion, on strictly scriptural grounds, to point out 
where the Romish Church had fallen into fatal 
errors, and he followed up these public teachings 
by private conversations in the confessional or in 
familiar intercourse with his parishioners. He 
found a warm supporter of his views in the per- 
son of the baron of Kruningen and Heenvliet him- 
self, whom he even induced to authorize a few re- 
forms in the church of Heenvliet. Thus, offerings 
to the images of saints were forbidden and certain 
superstitious processions were no longer held. 2 

1 Brandt, Hist, der Reform., I. p. 199 ; Chroot Martelaarsboek, p. 
491. 

2 Brandt, op. cit, p. 199. 

15 



226 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



For many years this excellent but unobtrusive 
work went on. It was impossible that Merula's 
teachings should not have come to the knowledge 
of the Church authorities or to that of the inquisi- 
tors. But as long as the lord of Heenvliet, who 
had called him to this charge, and who fully en- 
dorsed his actions, lived to protect his person and 
second his endeavors to purify the Church, the ene- 
mies of truth could not molest him. No sooner, 
however, had his noble patron departed this life 
than the persecution of the faithful priest began. 
The son and successor of the old baron was equally 
disposed to uphold Merula, but he had not the 
firmness of his father. He had married the sister of 
the stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, and through 
this chief dignitary of the State the prelates and the 
inquisitors brought strong influence to bear upon 
the young nobleman. At last he was induced to 
deliver up his aged friend and to permit him to be 
tried for his opinions. An account of what Merula 
had taught and the changes he had introduced at 
Heenvliet was sent to the regent Mary of Hungary, 
sister of Charles V., who had succeeded Margaret 
of Austria in the government of the provinces after 
the latter's death, in 1530. She at once ordered the 
Provincial Estates of Holland to take charge of the 
matter. Thereupon, Christian de Weert, a member 
of the Estates and procurator-general of the province, 
was despatched to Heenvliet to investigate the truth 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



227 



of the accusations brought against the venerable 
priest. The alterations in the formula of the Mass 
were, of course, at once detected. The procurator 
then repaired to the village of Geervliet, hardly a 
mile distant, and secretly summoned the oldest of 
the inhabitants and of the congregation of Heenvliet, 
whom he interrogated as to the teachings and doings 
of their pastor through the long term of his minis- 
trations among them. Having taken down their 
statements in writing, he returned to The Hague 
without having even seen Merula himself, and re- 
ported the result of his investigations to the Estates. 

For some months nothing further was done, but, 
in the spring of 1553, Franciscus Sonnius, doctor 
of theology, canon of the cathedral at Utrecht and 
inquisitor, was informed of the case. Dr. Sonnius 
became unpleasantly celebrated afterward as the 
envoy of King Philip to the Pope to ask his per- 
mission to increase the number of bishoprics with- 
in the boundaries of the Netherland provinces. He 
arrived at Heenvliet during Lent, and at once 
ordered a search of Merula's books and papers, 
while he secured his person and put him under 
guard at the castle of Wilenstein, situated in the 
vicinity of the village and belonging to the baron 
of Heenvliet. This occurred on April 20, 1553, 
and was but the beginning of evils. 



CHAPTER XI. 



ANGEL US MERULA: HIS FIRST SENTENCE. 
TTE have before remarked that the worst pains 



of martyrdom were by no means always 
those endured in the last extremity at the stake, 
but were often suffered during a prolonged imprison- 
ment and the harrowing examinations by the judges 
of the Inquisition. An illustration of this fact is 
afforded in a striking manner by the case of Ange- 
lus Merula, who was providentially spared the tor- 
ments of the fire, but whose martyrdom extended 
through four long years of the most painful expe- 
riences. At the age of seventy-one years he found 
himself a prisoner at the castle of his patron, while 
hostile hands and eyes were rummaging among his 
papers, hunting for evidence that might destroy him. 
Sonnius confronted him with seventeen separate 
charges based upon his teachings and his alterations 
of formulae or ceremonies, and demanded a reply in 
writing. Within three days Merula furnished this, 
in clear and convincing language defending himself 
on scriptural grounds. The inquisitor now demand- 
ed his sermons, or briefs of sermons, for examina- 




228 



MABTYES OF HOLLAND. 229 



tion. Friends advised Merula to refuse, but he 
would not listen to such advice. " If," he said, 
" I should conceal what I have taught my people, 
the report would be spread abroad that I have de- 
ceived them. What I was not ashamed to preach 
I will not be ashamed to make known to my exam- 
iners." 

Sonnius, on receiving these briefs into his hands 
— having, also, after another thorough search, col- 
lected all the suspicious books he found in Merula's 
study — associated with him the pastor of a neigh- 
boring village in the examination of the whole. 
They gathered abundant evidences of evangelical 
teachings from the sermons. They found a copy 
of the Interim, a compact which Charles V. had 
ordered to oe drawn up and published in the hope 
of reconciling the Reformed and Roman Catholic 
princes of Germany. Upon the pages of this book 
Merula had written numerous marginal notes and 
observations which dealt freely and unsparingly 
with the erroneous teachings of the mother-Church. 
Altogether, the inquisitor had a clear case of heresy 
against the aged priest. He expanded the points of 
offence into one hundred and fifty articles, to which 
Merula was again commanded to reply in writing. 
When this had been done, Sonnius attempted to get 
the consent of the baron of Heenvliet to his removal 
for trial to Utrecht, the seat of the bishop, whose 
sway extended over all Holland at that time. The 



230 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



baron would not allow this, but consented that he 
be taken to The Hague and held a prisoner there. 
He had scarcely been conveyed to this place, how- 
ever, when Sonnius, seconded by the chief inquisitor 
of the Netherlands, Kuard Tapper, again sought to 
effect his transfer to Utrecht. Baron Heenvliet 
now yielded, but Merula appealed to the States of 
Holland, and they refused to permit this infraction 
of the privileges of citizenship. 

On the 8th of June, 1553, after six weeks of im- 
prisonment in the dungeons of Castle Wilenstein, 
the aged and infirm pastor was removed to The 
Hague and confined in the Prison-Gate, where John 
Pistorius had languished before him. He was not 
treated with great severity at first ; he was allowed 
the companionship of his nephew, William Merula, 
who ministered to him in his feebleness and his fre- 
quent illnesses. Meanwhile, Sonnius, disappointed 
in his desire to get Merula' s case more directly under 
the control of the Church at Utrecht, purposely de- 
layed the trial. Months went by in spite of urgent 
solicitations on the part of the prisoner to bring his 
case to an issue. As winter approached, Regent 
Mary, in consideration of the prisoner's advanced 
age, ordered him to be taken to a place of security 
not quite so uncomfortable as the common prison. 
Accordingly on December 24, he was transferred 
to a convent and put in charge of two officers of 
the law. 



The " Gevangenpoort " or " Prison Gate " at The Hague. Page 230. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 231 



It was not till the 9th of July, 1554, that Tap- 
per and Sonnius appeared at The Hague to pro- 
ceed with the trial. Tapper at once ordered the 
aged sufferer to be returned to the Prison-Gate, 
strictly guarded and deprived of the ministrations 
of his nephew, forbidding all intercourse with the 
latter, or with any one else, by word of mouth or 
by letters. When the trial opened, the one hun- 
dred and fifty articles which Sonnius had submitted 
the year before, with Merula's written replies, were 
produced in court. But the chief inquisitor grew 
impatient, ordered them to be reduced to one hun- 
dred expressed in briefest form, and commanded 
Merula to reply to them categorically on the spot, 
saying to each " I believe " or " I believe not," and 
nothing more. This was done, the examination last- 
ing only about one hour. 

The proceedings thus far constituted merely the 
formal accusation. Merula was informed that by 
order of the regent two gentlemen of the court of 
Holland had been appointed to assist him with their 
counsel, and to prevent the occurrence during the 
process of anything that might be irregular or 
illegal or that was prompted by the bitterness of 
prejudice. 

The trial, now regularly begun, lasted through 
almost an entire month, Brandt says : " He main- 
tained his cause against Tapper and his assistants, 
in the presence of the stadtholder and the court, 



232 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



during nearly a month, verbally and by writing, 
with an invincible eloquence and a marvelous firm- 
ness such as astonished his bitterest enemies and ren- 
dered them as mute as fishes. " Merula requested 
that some of his written replies might be read in the 
hearing of the court ; the inquisitors would not per- 
mit this. When he appealed to the court, they 
promised to let his counsel see copies of them — a 
promise, however, which was not fulfilled. Indeed, 
the counsel themselves were of no real help to him 
and seemed appointed only for the sake of form ; 
for when he called their attention to the fact that 
the inquisitors refused him the commonest rights 
and courtesies usually accorded to prisoners on trial 
for life, they replied, " We are simply appointed by 
the queen 1 to be witnesses of what is and has been 
done, and not to be judges." 

In the course of his defence Merula maintained 
that he had never separated himself from the 
Church, and had never before, nor did he now, wish 
to do so. He declared that he could never depart 
from these positions : " that God alone must be 
called upon in the hour of need, that Christ is the 
only Mediator and Intercessor, that the adoration 
of images is vain, unprofitable and improper, that 
justification is only by faith, not by works, that 
the merit of Christ's life and death is the only 
atonement." 2 In regard to the marginal notes in 

1 Regent Mary was queen of Hungary. 2 Brandt, L p. 203. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



233 



the Interim, he explained that with other theologians 
he had been summoned to Utrecht to examine and 
report upon the articles contained in this com- 
pact. Being prevented by sickness and infirmity 
from attending that gathering, he had made these 
notes for his own private use. It was gross in- 
justice to charge him with dissension and heresy 
on the ground of such work, undertaken at the 
instance of the authorities of the Church them- 
selves. 

On the 28th of September, 1554, everything had 
been made ready for the execution of Merula, but, 
to their dismay, the inquisitors discovered that they 
were in quite as much danger of their lives as their 
innocent victim. From all parts of Holland the 
people had poured into The Hague, clamoring for 
their " father, defender, only comforter and helper 
in their need and adversity." His excellent virtues 
and large beneficence to the poor were remembered : 
the indignation and the sympathy of the masses 
were aroused, and they were prepared to execute 
vengeance upon his persecutors. The States of Hol- 
land, too, shared the popular sentiment. The in- 
quisitors were in great perplexity, but they were 
equal to the occasion. They resorted to an extra- 
ordinary expedient marked by a cunning worthy of 
the devil whose work they were doing. They sent 
for the prisoner. He supposed he was to be led to 
the stake, and rejoiced that the end of his misery 



234 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



was near. His nephew had been permitted to take 
leave of him ; in parting he pressed a tender fare- 
well kiss upon the youth's brow, not expecting to 
see him again. He was conducted to the council- 
chamber. Arrived there, one of the inquisitors, 
suffragan bishop of Utrecht, threw himself upon 
his knees before the astonished Merula and with 
folded and upraised hands addressed him in a 
lengthy prayer. He told him that the people were 
greatly incensed on his account and threatened death 
to all such as should do him harm. " Preserve our 
lives/' he exclaimed, with much dramatic affectation, 
" for they are in your hands. Let us set aside the 
weighty articles of faith ; you need not retract your 
opinions about these, but may continue to hold them 
in their full force. But in the matter of some un- 
important customs or ceremonies of long standing 
confess that you have been somewhat unwise and 
untimely in your zeal to abolish them, and say, ( I 
am sorry for this.' Do this in the hearing of the 
people, and you shall live and preserve our lives at 
the same time." 1 

The old man was much moved by this strange 
appeal. Turning to the president of the court, he 
asked him what he should do. The latter replied, 
"Ask your conscience, and none other." The pris- 
oner, not quite catching his meaning, accepted the 
reply as a hint to comply. He accordingly gave 
1 Brandt, p. 206. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 235 



his consent to the proposed measure, thinking there- 
by to appease the multitude and to promote peace 
at no sacrifice of any important doctrine or princi- 
ple. The inquisitors thereupon proceeded with their 
prisoner to the public square, where the preparations 
for burning him had been made. Here the people 
were assembled in great numbers, ready to attempt 
his rescue. Their attention was requested to the 
reading of a paper. The principal, distinguishing 
teachings of evangelical truth — those which he would 
not have retracted to save his life, which it had been 
expressly stipulated would be left out of consider- 
ation in this arrangement — were read, after which it 
was stated that Merula abjured all such doctrines 
and all sympathy with Luther or other heretics, that 
he promised on oath to remain in the faith and unity 
of the true Romish Church, holding that all those 
who did differently were worthy of eternal damna- 
tion, that he prayed God to forgive him the errors 
which he now renounced, and that he also asked to 
be forgiven by those whom he had misled. 

Merula, now seventy-two years old, was very deaf. 
The reading had been done in as low a voice as 
possible, with great rapidity and indistinctness of 
enunciation, and while it was going on some of the 
inquisitors had purposely engaged the prisoner in 
conversation ; therefore he had not heard a word of 
the contents of the paper read to the people. When 
the reader had finished, the suffragan bishop turned 



236 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to Merula and asked in a loud voice whether he con- 
sented to what had been read. Thinking, of course, 
that the unimportant matters of which mention had 
been made before had been treated of in the paper, 
Merula innocently answered in the affirmative. The 
effect upon the people may be imagined. Their sym- 
pathy was turned into disgust and scorn, and the 
inquisitors might now safely proceed to execute 
what sentence they pleased. Nevertheless, they did 
not put him to death. His books and his writings 
were ordered to be burned, he himself was con- 
demned to perpetual imprisonment and to pay all 
the costs of his trial, w T hile the recantation, as read 
before the people and consented to by him, was to 
be published from the pulpit of Heenvliet. 

After this sentence had been read to him Merula 
was led back to his cell. Here his nephew awaited 
him, and now for the first time he learned of the 
fraud that had been practiced upon him. He was 
thrown into a paroxysm of grief and indignation. 
" O my God !" he exclaimed ; " how deceitfully 
have these gowned hypocrites, these robbers of my 
fair fame, dealt with me ! Why should one who is 
on the brink of the grave, and in the very course 
of nature near unto death, have given the appear- 
ance of a fear of death, doing despite unto thy truth 
by disgracefully abjuring it ? This be far from me, 
most gracious Father; such has never entered my 
thoughts, has never come up within my heart ; such 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



237 



compromises have I never made with the enemies 
of thy truth. O God, they have sorely deceived 
me and led astray thy people." It was impossible 
to console the afflicted old man ; despair and mis- 
ery filled his heart and affected him so deeply that 
he fell into a severe and dangerous illness. This 
being reported to the States of Holland by his 
nephew and confirmed by physicians, they permitted 
his removal from the rigorous prison in The Hague 
to the monastery of St. Magdalene in the city of 
Delft. The favorable change and the faithful and 
indefatigable ministrations of William Merula pre- 
served his life, but it was saved only for greater and 
more cruel sufferings and persecution. 



CHAPTER XII. 



ANGEL US MEBULA: HIS DEATH. 
E trust it will not be thought superfluous to 



' * devote three chapters to this one martyrdom. 
It is unparalleled in the length of time through 
which it extended ; every day and week and month 
of the more than four years was but the prolonga- 
tion of multiplied miseries and sufferings. Besides, 
the details and circumstances that come into view 
before us give us an instructive insight into the 
modes, practices and expedients which the Inquisi- 
tion pursued without scruple to destroy its victims ; 
and the bitterness of their hatred is especially signif- 
icant when we reflect that it was directed against a 
man who desired nothing so much as the good of 
the Romish Church, and who felt to the last that he 
was none other than her loyal son. 

Merula had scarcely recovered from his sickness 
when his troubles began again to thicken. Tapper, 
the chief inquisitor for the Netherlands, was also 
chancellor of the university at Louvain. He claimed 
that he could not travel so frequently to Holland to 
conduct this case, and requested permission of the 




238 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 239 



regent Mary to remove Merula from Delft to Lou- 
vain. Appeals to the States of Holland and to the 
regent, protests against the injustice and illegality 
of such a proceeding, proved all in vain. The regent 
gave the orders for his removal, the States of Hol- 
land gave their consent, and, in the beginning of the 
year 1555, Merula was taken to Louvain, in the 
Southern Netherlands — now Belgium — and impris- 
oned in a monastery. Here he was forbidden all 
intercourse, personal or by letter, with his friends ; 
he was not allowed to eat at the same table with the 
monks, and on three days of the week was to sub- 
sist on bread and water only. These severities, 
however, did not break his spirit ; he remained firm 
in his faith and in his opposition to Romish errors 
and superstitions. A renewed attempt was there- 
fore determined on to move him from his position. 
He was subjected to another hearing early in 1556, 
or about a year after he had been brought to Lou- 
vain. The empty disputations, the vexatious as- 
saults of learning and sophistry, proved of no avail, 
however, except that they contributed to confirm 
Merula in his convictions of the truth. When argu- 
ments were seen to fail and he was threatened with 
still greater punishments and a painful death, he 
replied, "I do not fear my adversaries, and for 
that truth which I have preached and defended in 
my writings I shall go into the flames as willingly 
as into the dining-hall to eat my food." 



240 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



The monks of the monastery, the people of the 
city — even some of the professors of the university 
— were moved to compassion by the rigorous treat- 
ment inflicted upon so aged and so worthy a man. 
Nothing, however, could melt the heart of the chief 
inquisitor. Persons who sought to induce him to 
moderate his severity were peremptorily and effect- 
ually silenced by the threat that he would consider 
those who preferred petitions in Merula's favor as 
among the adherents of his doctrine. But, as it was 
too evident that the case was making a great stir in 
Louvain, Tapper contemplated another transfer of 
the prisoner. 

While the suffering old man was languishing in 
his dungeon great changes had taken place in the 
political w r orld that surrounded him. On October 
25, 1555, Charles V., emperor of Germany, king 
of Spain and hereditary lord of all the Netherland 
provinces, had abdicated these various powers and 
dignities in the presence of a great assembly at 
Brussels. His son, Philip II., succeeded to the 
kingdom of Spain and the sovereignty of the Low 
Countries ; to him, therefore, Tapper now made ap- 
plication for permission to remove Merula to a still 
greater distance from his native Holland. This 
request was granted, and, accordingly, about the 
middle of the year 1556, the poor victim of the 
Inquisition, bowed under the weight of years and 
of his many sorrows, was compelled once more to 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



241 



suffer a change of prison, being placed in confine- 
ment in the abbey of Lissieux, in the province of 
Hainault, far to the south of Brussels. 

Here Merula remained more than a year, during 
which time he was constantly annoyed by the futile 
efforts of the abbot and others to reason him back 
to a full acceptance of Romish errors and traditions. 
Early in 1557 he petitioned the king to allow him 
the freedom of the abbey, from which it appears 
that here he must have been confined in a cell. 
But the answer of Philip hastened the culmination 
of his calamities ; he commanded that the prisoner 
be removed from the abbey to the city of Mons, in 
the same province, and that there the final steps in 
the process be instituted, and thus an end be made 
of the case. Accordingly, Merula was conveyed to 
this city on the 4th of June, 1557, and thrown into 
a wretched dungeon, foul with vermin, in the castle 
or citadel. And again in the present instance fraud 
attended and aggravated the victim's fate. The 
transfer was secretly and quickly effected, and the 
report was industriously spread through the city that 
the prisoner had been arrested somewhere in the vicin- 
ity. Still further to aid the delusion that this was 
a new case, officials were sent down to Mons, and 
these went through the forms of a trial. Merula was 
declared to be a lapsed heretic ; he was condemned 
to be degraded from the priesthood, and afterward 
to be burned to death at the stake. The sentence 

16 



242 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



appointed the 24th of July, 1557, as the day of 
execution. 

The faithful and affectionate nephew, William 
Merula, had been separated from his uncle ever 
since his removal to Louvain, and while there, as 
well as subsequently, the martyr had been forbid- 
den to communicate with his friends. By the secret 
removal from the abbey of Lissieux, William had 
lost all traces of his unfortunate relative, but with 
indefatigable diligence he put forth every effort to 
discover his whereabouts ; he was rewarded at last, 
and learned that the aged victim had been taken to 
Mons. William hastened, therefore, to Brussels to 
ask permission of Tapper to join his uncle, and 
arrived there on the identical 24th of July. Tap- 
per gave the desired permission, but informed him 
that Angelus had been sentenced to die on this 
very day. Nevertheless, William persevered in his 
journey, and reached Mons on the morning of 
July 26. No one, however, could tell him any- 
thing about his uncle, for his name had not even been 
mentioned there. About ten o'clock in the forenoon 
a procession was seen to issue from the gates of the 
citadel. Young Merula, naturally on the alert to 
profit by anything that would give him access to 
the awful secrets of the citadel, joined the curious 
crowds that ran to ascertain what this might signify. 
In the midst of a number of soldiers and ecclesias- 
tics he perceived the tottering steps of an aged man 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



243 



leaning heavily upon a staff. Emaciated by the 
cruel imprisonment of the last six weeks, covered 
with vile rags and disgusting vermin, the devoted 
nephew with difficulty recognized in this wretched 
being the venerable relative whom so long he had 
sought in vain. Some delay had occurred on the 
24th which had compelled the postponement of the 
execution for two days. It was a most fortunate 
providence ; had it occurred on the day that had 
been appointed for it, the world might never have 
known what was the glorious end of this shameful 
persecution. 

Just before leaving the castle for the place of ex- 
ecution Merula had addressed his judges in a scath- 
ing rebuke, ending with the words, " The glowing 
embers, when they shall have consumed my body, 
will not grow cold before the rumor of your mur- 
der shall have flown over into Holland to my peo- 
ple." A great joy took possession of him when he 
saw his nephew. He said to him, " My son, the 
last hour, for which I have long wished with all 
my heart, has now come. This is the hour in 
which the great God gives me an opportunity to 
seal with my blood and a painful death the truth 
of all things I have maintained both publicly and 
privately. Look upon my foul condition ; if your 
eyes cannot bear the sight, the stench will overpower 
you. Thieves and murderers are not entreated so 
cruelly. Go and publish to friends and acquaint- 



244 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ances what you have seen and heard. All that I 
have will be your portion. Do as much as you can 
to promote the preservation of the houses which I 
have built for the poor people of Brille. I trust 
that the poor and the orphans may keep the dwell- 
ings and the endowments which I have devoted to 
their benefit. The minister of finance will be more 
merciful than the inquisitors." 

But now the officers impatiently interrupted the 
aged speaker, and bade him finish what he wished 
to say to his relative. He concluded, therefore, as 
follows : " Behold, I go. I thank God, the most 
gracious Father, that I shall die publicly. My 
blood, however, will not quench the fire which has 
arisen against my enemies; the flames thereof tjhall 
soon burst forth with violence, and will refuse to 
be extinguished either by them or by those who 
come after them." His nephew now encouraged 
him with words of cheer and hopefulness : " Be- 
lieve assuredly that in a few moments you will 
behold the salvation of the Lord in the land of 
the living. Quit you, therefore, right manfully, 
and await the coming of the Lord with firmness." 
The two men were now torn from each other's em- 
brace, and the procession at once went on toward 
its destination. 

The executioner on one side and a Franciscan 
monk on the other supported the exhausted frame 
of the martyr, who was now seventy-five years of 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



245 



age. But his last breath was expended in proclaim- 
ing the truth. All along the way he ceased not to 
address the accompanying multitudes in the French 
language, greatly to the surprise of his persecutors, 
who did not know he was master of that tongue, and 
thus had not expected that he would harangue the 
people. He admonished all to seek "the true 
knowledge, love and fear of God," also " to med- 
itate on the death and merits of the only Saviour, 
Jesus Christ, renouncing their own works." He 
declared that the principal reason why he must die 
was that he had persisted in teaching that " on the 
name of God alone should men call." 

A spot outside the city walls had been selected for 
the place of execution. In this part of the country 
it seems to have been customary on these occasions to 
put up a small structure — called the "house" — com- 
posed of wood, straw and other highly-inflammable 
materials. Into this the victim was conducted and 
secured to a stake placed in the centre, after which 
the torch was applied to the house. Arrived in 
front of this fatal house, Merula asked leave to 
spend a few moments in prayer, and his request was 
granted. He sank down upon his knees, and for 
some minutes his lips were seen to move. At length 
his kneeling form was observed to incline to one 
side and to lean heavily against the hut of straw. 
The bystanders supposed that the dread of the ap- 
proaching torture had overcome the aged man and 



246 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



had caused him to fall into a swoon, but it was soon 
found that life had fled — that the suffering soul had 
left the body. The executioner, startled by this sig- 
nal interference of Providence, refused to wreak the 
vengeance of the Inquisition upon the insensate 
body. Some officers of that court, however, un- 
troubled by any such tenderness of heart, put the 
torch to the inflammable house and threw the corpse 
upon the flames. 

Thus perished with the crown and honor of mar- 
tyrdom upon him the pious and learned Angelus 
Merula, a priest of Rome, a loyal son of the Church. 
But he had dared to read his Bible aright in the 
original tongues, to which he had access, and because 
the conclusions derived from an impartial Bible study 
had seemed to him to upset and overthrow the tradi- 
tions and the superstitions of that erring Church, she 
hounded this loyal son and faithful servant to the 
death, pursuing him with unrelenting cruelty and 
persistent hatred through four long years of persecu- 
tion, and to the very flames of the martyr's stake at 
last. 

What reforms could be hoped for within the 
bosom of such a Church ? The hope of a reforma- 
tion lay only outside of it, in spite of it, in opposi- 
tion to it. This Luther found; thus all the Re- 
formers were cast out of her communion, and the 
march of spiritual power and spiritual growth went 
on beyond her pale and left her far behind to mum- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 247 

ble over and over again the old musty traditions, 
and to go on smothering the spirit and power of 
religion in senseless ceremonies and burdensome 
ordinances. 1 

1 Very full and circumstantial accounts of this martyr are 
found both in Brandt's Historie and in the Groot Martelaarsboek. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



HERMAN JANSEN OF AMSTERDAM. 

MORE than once we have had occasion to speak 
of the edicts or placards promulgated against 
the Reformed by the emperor Charles V. The 
date of the martyrdom last noticed, as well as that 
which is our subject at present, is beyond the date 
of the latest of these prohibitory laws, and a brief 
summary of them will, therefore, be now in place. 

Those were still the early days of printing, as the 
invention was scarcely a century old ; there were, 
therefore, as yet no newspapers, nor was there a 
journal which figured as the official organ of the 
court or government. When, accordingly, edicts of 
such importance to every inhabitant of the land as 
were those against hereties were issued by the royal 
hand, there was only one way to secure the popular 
attention and perusal : they were printed upon im- 
mense sheets and pasted upon bulletin-boards at the 
town-halls or in the vicinity of the town-gates, where 
men might read them as they came in from the sur- 
rounding country. Hence they received the name 
of "placards." 

248 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



249 



The first of these despotic documents was pub- 
lished in the year 1521, shortly after Luther's ar- 
raignment before the Diet, or Parliament, of the 
empire at Worms. In this the Reformer is de- 
scribed as follows : " It seems that the person of the 
aforesaid Martin is not that of a man, but of a devil 
in human form, covered with the habit of a monk, 
in order to bring the human race the better and more 
easily to everlasting death and damnation." 1 This 
placard was mainly directed against the reading of 
Luther's writings. The next edict appeared in 1525, 
and placed not only heretic books, but even the 
Scriptures, under the ban, forbidding assemblies 
of the people to read or discuss these. The placard 
of 1526 exhibited an additional restriction in the 
way of forbidding discussions of religious mat- 
ters in the homes of the people or in private conver- 
sation anywhere. Two placards appeared in 1529 
(October 14 and December 7), dealing mainly with 
the difficult problem of heretical literature. The 
former of these two appealed to the cupidity of in- 
formers by offering to give them half the confiscated 
property of convicted parties. It was deemed so 
hard to suppress the prolific literature of the Ref- 
ormation that the second of the above edicts was 
ordered to be freshly issued every six months. In 
1540 a placard was promulgated at Ghent, whither 
the emperor had gone to quell a tumult growing out 
1 Brandt, Historie, I. p. 68. 



250 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



of his oppressive and unconstitutional measures : 
suspected heretics were by its provisions declared 
incapable of transferring or bequeathing their estates. 
The placards of 1544 and 1546 again attacked the 
products of the evermore industrious press and 
placed serious obstacles in the way of publication. 
That of 1549 first began to assail the privileges and 
the liberties pleaded in defence of their persecuted 
citizens by certain towns and provinces, and this, 
therefore, only led logically to the issuing of the 
tenth and last of Charles's placards — that of the 
year 1550. 1 This capped the climax of all the 
other wrongs and gave the Netherlands practically 
the Spanish Inquisition, although that name was 
diligently disavowed. According to it, " all judicial 
officers, at the requisition of the inquisitors, were to 
render them all assistance, . . . notwithstanding any 
privileges or charters to the contrary. In short, 
the inquisitors were not subject to the civil authority, 
but the civil authority to them." 2 This placard 
was considered to be such a consummate and effective 
weapon against the hated heresy that it was never 
improved upon. When Philip assumed the govern- 
ment after his father's abdication, in October, 1555, 
it was re-enacted less than a month later under the 
new reign ; and subsequently Philip tried to ward 

1 See, for a convenient summary of these placards, Rev. J. 
W. Mears's Beggars of Holland and Grandees of Spain. 

2 Motley's Rise of the Butch Republic, I. p. 331. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 251 



off the odium of these edicts by pretending that he 
had only maintained what he had found already 
established in the land by the emperor. Hence he 
was careful to issue no new placards, simply repeat- 
ing at stated intervals that of 1 550. 

Philip had been more than three years upon his 
throne; he had just humbled France and concluded 
a most favorable treaty with her, and he was fast 
completing his measures for a much-desired depart- 
ure from the turbulent scenes of the Low Countries 
to the quiet of the Spanish capital, when Herman 
Jansen, a native and citizen of Amsterdam, was put 
to death in the city of Antwerp. The margrave, or 
marquis, of Antwerp at this time was John of Im- 
merseele. This dignity or office seems to have been 
elective or bestowed as a gift by the municipality, 
for William of Orange occupied this position not 
long after. The present incumbent was a zealous 
persecutor of heretics, and used the powers conferred 
upon him by his office to afflict them to the utmost 
of his ability. It was at the instance of this " blood- 
thirsty man," as the author of the Great Martyr- 
ology calls him, that Herman Jansen was arrested. 
The latter was a gunsmith by trade, and had, no 
doubt, come to Antwerp for business purposes. His 
being arrested, held a prisoner and tried in this city 
while a citizen of Amsterdam was in utter violation 
of burgher privileges, but it was authorized by the 
placards of 1549 and 1550. 



252 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



The principal accusations brought against Jansen 
were two in number. The first was that he had per- 
mitted assemblies at his house for the preaching of 
the word ; to this he replied that he had permitted 
no gatherings that were forbidden by God, but, on 
the contrary, such as were distinctly enjoined in 
Holy Writ. The second accusation gives us an in- 
teresting insight into the practices of the Reformed 
in those troublous times. We may well imagine 
that after their conversion a thorough conviction of 
the unscriptural character of the clergy must have 
made them hesitate to employ their services. The 
baptism of children, or other religious rites, may 
soon have been entrusted to chosen men among 
themselves. But there was a ceremony partaking of 
both a civil and a religious nature. It would seem 
that they could not easily have avoided the employ- 
ment of a priest in performing marriages, yet we 
learn from this martyrdom that the Reformed 
squarely faced this issue also and entered upon the 
married state according to ceremonies satisfactory to 
themselves, disregarding the papal Church, for the 
second accusation against Jansen was based upon 
his having married his wife " in the congregation 
of the Lord Jesus Christ/* 1 as the Martyrology ex- 
presses it. It seems, however, that special stress 
was laid by the margrave upon the charge of hold- 
ing secret assemblies, for this offence was more di- 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 614. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



253 



rectly treated of in the placards. Shortly after his 
imprisonment Jansen was permitted to address a 
letter to some of his friends in Amsterdam to ex- 
plain to them the reason why he had been appre- 
hended, and he took occasion by means of this 
writing to define his faith and support it by Script- 
ure, denying that he was guilty of heresy, because 
he held no doctrines that could be called false by 
the standard of the Bible. His stay in prison was 
somewhat alleviated by companionship, one Corne- 
lius Halewyn, a native and citizen of Antwerp, shar- 
ing his confinement. 

Notwithstanding the fact that one of the earlier 
placards had enjoined swift proceedings against her- 
etics, cases were frequently allowed to linger ; Jansen 
and Halewyn were left to languish in their cheerless 
and uncomfortable prison for nearly a year. At 
length, on February 28, 1559, they were summoned 
to appear before the inquisitorial court. After a 
hearing had been given them a private consultation 
was held by the judges ; they decided upon the sen- 
tence, but did not give public utterance to it, and 
this for a very significant reason. The sentence 
" was not publicly pronounced that the populace 
might not know of it." 1 Had not that populace, 
then, been sufficiently cowed already by the pla- 
cards of the emperor and the numerous and cruel 
persecutions which proved their practical efficacy ? 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 616. 



254 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



It would seem not. At the execution of two Wal- 
loon martyrs on January 19 of this same year a 
riot very nearly took place. " The whole multi- 
tude," Brandt graphically records, u as with one 
mouth cried, ( Kill ! kill P People trampled upon 
each other ; dwellings and stores were closed ; the 
executioner fled ; the margrave did not know where 
to turn ; the sheriff took refuge in the church. 
Quiet, however, was restored, and the sentence was 
executed." 1 

With this popular demonstration of only six 
weeks ago in their minds, the inquisitors resolved 
to be cautious in the present instance. The nature 
of their sentence was kept a secret even from the 
prisoners themselves. They received the first inti- 
mation of it by the treatment to which they were 
subjected on their return to the jail. Having in- 
quired of the constables what had been determined 
by the judges, they received for answer that their 
case had been postponed for a fortnight. But the 
officials by their actions gave the lie to their words. 
Instead of being led back to their cell, the prisoners 
were heavily ironed and cast into a subterranean 
dungeon. They knew too well that this signified 
that they were under sentence of death, yet this con- 
viction did not fill them with dismay, but rather 
with joy. 

Early in the morning of the very next day (March 
1 Brandt, Historie, I. p. 228. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 255 



1, 1559) the margrave of Antwerp came to the prison 
with a number of monks and ordered Jansen and 
Halewyn to be brought before him. It does not 
appear that he had any favors to offer to the former 
— possibly because he was a Hollander — but to Hale- 
wyn, as a burgher of Antwerp, he made the promise 
that if he would consent to hearken to the monks he 
would procure him a less painful mode of execution. 
But the offer was rejected. As they were about to 
be led to the place of execution Jansen made bold 
to address the margrave with this solemn admoni- 
tion : " See to it what you are doing, for God will 
not account it a little thing that you deprive us of 
life. Therefore repent, my lord margrave, before 
the Lord visit you. You will not be permitted to 
pursue this course much longer ; God will become 
weary of it at last." 

When the prisoners had been bound, the mar- 
grave desired that they hold a w r ooden crucifix in 
their hands on their way to the scaffold. He assured 
Halewyn that if he would please him in this little 
matter he w^ould have him beheaded instead of 
burned at the stake. Both martyrs, however, threw 
the crucifixes from them with disdain ; they de- 
clared that they would not by the very least token 
give occasion to the reproach of having abandoned 
their convictions. Dying in the Lord, as witnesses 
to his truth, it was of small consequence what was 
the manner of their death, and the pain of being 



256 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



burned was not to be compared with the glory that 
should be revealed to the failhful. They were now 
conducted to the market-place, one side of which is 
occupied by the noble city-hall, while on the oppo- 
site side the magnificent and marvelous spire of the 
cathedral, only a block or two away, looms far up 
above the intervening houses. On the way to exe- 
cution Herman Jansen sang several verses of the 
one hundred and thirtieth psalm : " Out of the 
depths have I cried unto thee, O God." Cornelius 
Halewyn at the same time addressed the attending 
throngs and admonished them with great earnest- 
ness. Arrived at the market, the sword wherewith 
they were to have been executed if they had yielded 
to the margrave was laid conspicuously near them, 
as if to move them from their firmness in the last 
moment, but it was in vain. The martyrs were 
then placed in a little hut made of dry branches, 
and were strangled at the stake. 

At this moment an ominous tumult was heard 
arising among the assembled multitudes. It was 
thought that there might be a repetition of the 
scenes witnessed on the preceding 19th of January. 
The executioner, naturally supposing that he would 
be the first object of attack, seized the sword lying 
near, prepared to defend himself. But it was a false 
alarm, and all was soon quiet. He was permitted 
to set fire to the hut of branches, and the bodies of 
Jansen and Halewyn were consumed to ashes. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 257 



The margrave, now that all was over, was about 
to ride away, when a second time a disturbance arose 
among the populace. The noise and the tumult be- 
came much more serious than before. The officials 
of the Inquisition and the forces of the margrave 
fled for their lives, leaving the latter to cope alone 
with a threatening mob. The record sets him before 
us " white as a sheet with consternation," but does 
not tell us that the multitude broke into actual vio- 
lence. 1 It was much, however, that at this period, 
with no great leaders to direct them and with the 
almost supernatural and invincible power of the 
Inquisition to confront them, the people dared 
manifest their indignation at all. 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, pp. 614-617. 

17 



CHAPTER XIY. 



JOHN BE GBAEF: IMPRISONED AT HULST. 

THE city of Hulst is situated in the province 
of Zeeland. It is in that part of its territory 
which goes by the name of " Flemish Zeeland/' 
because it was once a part of Flanders. It did 
not belong to Zeeland when the latter entered upon 
its compact with the six other provinces to form the 
Dutch republic. For a long time it was held by 
the republic as conquered territory, and on that 
account was designated, together with the territo- 
ries now embraced in the provinces of North Bra- 
bant and Limburg, by the curious name of Gener- 
aliteit — i. e., " generality " — because it came under 
the direct jurisdiction of the general government, 
like the District of Columbia in our republic. De 
Amicis has this to say of it in his usual lively way : 
" When the war of independence broke out, the in- 
habitants of Flemish Zeeland, rather than give it up 
to the Spaniards, cut their dykes, let in the sea, and, 
destroying in one day the labor of four centuries, 
it became once more the gulf of the Middle Ages. 
The war of independence over, the work of refor- 

258 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 259 



ination was again commenced, and in three hundred 
years Flemish Zeeland again emerged from the wa- 
ters, and was restored to the continent like a daugh- 
ter that had been dead and was alive again. The 
inhabitants of Flemish Zeeland, when they inun- 
dated their country and rose against the Spanish 
domination, were still Catholics ; consequently, the 
strange circumstance occurred that, while they went 
down into the waters good Catholics, they rose to 
the surface Protestants." 

The town of Hulst is famous in the history of 
the Dutch republic for one of the earliest and most 
brilliant military exploits on the part of Maurice 
of Nassau, the son and successor of William of 
Orange. " It was a place of importance from its 
situation," says Motley, " its possession by the ene- 
my being a perpetual thorn in the side of the States 
and a constant obstacle to the plans of Maurice. 
His arrangements having been made with the 
customary neatness, celerity and completeness, he 
received the surrender of the city on the fifth day 
after his arrival." This was on September 24, 
1591. Long before this date it obtained a sadder 
distinction as the scene of two martyrdoms. Of 
these we shall notice first the one that was really 
second in point of time, because the account pre- 
served to us is much more meagre than that of the 
other, and we may therefore dispose of it here with 
but a single paragraph. 



260 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Francis Soete was a native of Hulst, and ad- 
mired by a large circle of friends as a man of ele- 
gant manners and possessed of many pleasing social 
qualities. He was an especial favorite with priests 
and monks who were fond of the world and its 
gayeties. After he was converted these men nat- 
urally resented his rebukes of their conduct and 
raised the hue-and-cry of heretic against him. He 
fled the country, but returned when he supposed 
that more favorable circumstances had come about. 
He was arrested. As he was being led to prison he 
remarked to the persecutors, " You have laid hands 
upon me to take away my life and bent your spite 
upon me, thinking you are doing me great harm ; 
but this will be to me as if you took from me a 
handful of worthless pence and gave me in their 
stead a handful of gold pieces." In prison he was 
subjected to a twofold annoyance : he had to listen 
to the arguments of priests and monks who sought 
to reason him back to the Romish faith, while a 
brutal and drunken jailer was permitted to subject 
him to humiliating cruelties. After a year's im- 
prisonment he was sentenced to die by beheading. 
On receiving his sentence he said to the judges, 
" Whereas, therefore, my lords, you desire my blood, 
I yield this to you with great cheerfulness ; but to 
the almighty Lord of hosts I yield my soul." He 
was put to death on May 1, 1566, upon the market- 
place of Hulst. 



MABTYES OF HOLLAND. 261 



In the vicinity of this little city, to-day number- 
ing scarcely three thousand souls, there lived a man 
by the name of John de Graef. He was a native 
of a village near the great city of Ghent, in Flan- 
ders, but having for many years resided in the ter- 
ritory now belonging to the kingdom of Holland, 
and having, moreover, endured martyrdom upon 
Dutch soil, he deserves a place upon the roll of the 
martyrs of Holland. When the teachings of the 
Reformation had penetrated to the regions where he 
dwelt, he soon gave them a fervent reception in his 
own heart. He was a miller by trade, and occupied 
a mill which he had rented of the abbot of Bande- 
loo. It may be imagined that his change of senti- 
ments on the religious questions of the day did not 
much please his landlord. To evade the annoyances 
to which he was subjected, and also in order to enjoy 
greater spiritual advantages, he moved to Antwerp 
with his young wife and his four young children. 
He united with the secret congregation which ex- 
isted there through the connivance of the magis- 
trates, who disliked to enforce the placards. But, 
as he had not been able to move all his effects at 
once, he returned a little later to his former home, 
intending to carry away with him all his remaining 
property. It proved to be an act of great impru- 
dence, for while he was at the mill he was arrested 
by the sheriff of Hulst and confined in the prison 
in that city. This occurred on November 17, 1564. 



262 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



He was subjected to the usual rigorous and inhuman 
treatment deemed proper for the prisoners of the 
Inquisition even before their heresy was proved. 
He was provided with the least possible food and 
drink, so that he almost perished with hunger, 
while he resorted to the most desperate expedients 
to allay his raging thirst. He was cut off from all 
communication with his friends, and their kindly 
endeavors to relieve his necessities only resulted in 
persecution to themselves and in more hardships, 
if possible, for De Graef. During the severities of 
the winter it was customary to permit prisoners to 
leave their cells a few hours each day in order to 
warm themselves at the common hearth of the 
prison, but this privilege was denied to him. His 
brother, Victor de Graef, and his wife, applied to 
Hubert Dulle, burgomaster of Hulst, begging that 
the ordinary privileges of the prisoners might be 
accorded to their unfortunate friend. " Even if my 
husband had committed a murder," said the afflicted 
wife, " his present condition should awaken pity." — 
" What !" answered Burgomaster Dulle, in a rage ; 
" do you think that your husband, who is a heretic, 
is better than a murderer, or any other miscreant ? 
Let him abandon his false opinions by which he has 
bewildered his mind." This was poor consolation 
for the weeping wife. As the winter — an excep- 
tionally severe one — advanced, the sufferings of the 
martyr became intense. His hands and feet were 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 263 



frequently frozen, until at last he could scarcely 
move about his cell. As if his sufferings from 
hunger, thirst and the merciless cold were not 
enough, in the midst of this all he was assailed 
time and again by the enemies of the faith, in the 
hope of shaking his resolution and making him 
renounce his evangelical convictions. They allowed 
his brother Victor to go to him, accompanied by 
his four children. Victor said to him, " Oh, dear 
brother, look upon your children. Have pity upon 
them, even if you must speak somewhat against 
your conscience." But John de Graef promptly 
replied, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou art 
an offence unto me. Go out from my presence, 
for I will not follow your evil counsel." Less 
difficult to resist, but far more persistently annoy- 
ing, were the attempts of priests and monks to rea- 
son him back to their orthodox views. In a letter 
which he was permitted (strangely enough) to write 
to his coreligionists at Antwerp, we find recorded 
very circumstantially a conversation held between 
himself and two priests, pastors at Hulst — Martin 
Bartholomew and Cornelius of Cologne. This 
conversation gives so clear an insight into the mode 
of persuasion adopted by the ministers of the prev- 
alent religion that we reproduce it entire. 

After some general questions regarding his be- 
lief and a full statement by John de Graef defin- 
ing his evangelical opinions, the priests remarked, 



264 A CHUBCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



" John, you must believe everything which the 
infallible Roman Church teaches and ordains." 

" I will believe nothing/' said De Graef, " which 
was not spoken by the mouth of the Lord, for it is 
written that he who adds to or takes from the law 
of the Lord is accursed. Hence we must conclude 
that God's law is perfect without your human doc- 
trines." 

" You must continually believe more and more/' 
said his opponents, growing very angry inwardly. 
" What are you, to talk as you do, ignorant and 
unlearned man that you are ? You have no under- 
standing. If you don't believe that Christ's flesh 
and blood are present in the sacrament and in the 
Mass, then your faith is false and perverted." 

"I do not believe that at all," responded De 
Graef, " for the Scriptures nowhere teach me this." 

" You must believe it, anyhow," said the priests, 
" for Holy Mother Church believes it and the ancient 
doctors maintain it." 

" I will have nothing to do with a doctrine not 
contained in the Holy Scriptures," reiterated De 
Graef. 

" You wicked heretic," broke out Pastor Martin ; 
" is it not written, ( This is my body ' ?" 

"Yes," readily answered his humble disputant, 
" but it is also written, ' I am the vine,' ' I am the 
way/ and yet is Christ no vine or way. Therefore 
must 6 this is my body ' also be spiritually under- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 265 



stood, even as declared distinctly in the sixth of 
John : 6 The flesh profiteth nothing. The words 
that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are 
life/" 

" You lie," was the gentle rejoinder on the part 
of the learned pastor, " you heretic ! this is not so 
written. It were better for you to mind your mill 
than to discuss these matters." 

" Let a Bible be brought," quietly answered De 
Graef, " and I will point it out to you." 

At this conference was present a third person who 
had not hitherto spoken. He now said to the 
priests, in Latin. 

" Send for a Bible." 

This was accordingly done, and this person showed 
the passage in question to the priests. Their conduct 
thereupon is characteristic of the men of their stripe 
who ventured upon a controversy with the Re- 
formed. 

" This must be interpreted differently," said they. 
" You have no knowledge of these things." Then, 
subsiding into the far more comfortable process of 
terrorizing, they added, " If you will not let go your 
opinions, it will be the worse for you." 

" If I must suffer for the sake of the truth," De 
Graef replied, " my reward shall be great with the 
Lord." 

" Ha !" exclaimed his opponents ; " you refuse, 
then, to renounce your faith ? You will be compelled 



266 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to do so. Do you not know that the magistrate has 
the power to put you to death ?" 

This finished the argument ; it was the only field 
of reasoning where they, and such as they, were in- 
vincible, for, as Brandt remarks, it was much easier 
to burn heretics than to refute them. 

By invitation of these doughty disputants who 
had so triumphantly answered their starved and 
half-frozen antagonist, the notorious Peter Titelman 
— pre-eminent among the inquisitors for his ferocity 
and zeal — came to Hulst. " Contemporary chronicles 
give a picture of hirn," says Motley, "as of some 
grotesque yet terrible goblin careering through the 
country by night or day, alone, on horseback, smit- 
ing the trembling peasants on the head with a great 
club, spreading dismay far and wide, dragging sus- 
pected persons from their firesides or their beds and 
thrusting them into dungeons, arresting, torturing, 
strangling, burning, with hardly the shadow of a 
warrant, information or process." It was hoped 
that by some of these forceful persuasive methods 
Titelman might succeed with the obstinate John de 
Graef, where the honest pastors of Hulst had failed. 



CHAPTER XV. 



JOHN BE GRAEF: TRIAL AND EXECUTION 

MOTLEY'S graphic account cited at the close of 
our last chapter gives us a sufficiently vivid 
impression of Inquisitor Titelman's outrageous 
methods in capturing heretics. The history of this 
martyrdom puts us into the possession of further 
details which illustrate his manner of conducting 
the trials of his prisoners. 

Emaciated by two months of starvation, maimed 
by the severity of the winter's frost, John de Graef, 
innocent, harmless, a man of exemplary private vir- 
tues and of the fairest fame in the community, but 
a heretic on suspicion, was brought forth from his 
dungeon on January 21, 1565, to face Inquisitor 
Peter Titelman, bearing the commission of Pope and 
king. The Dutch language does not borrow of the 
Latin or Greek to express its ideas : it calls an in- 
quisitor, therefore, a Geloofsrechter — a " judge of 
the faith and this gives us a clearer idea of the 
office this man held. He exercised the functions 
of a judge, but his province was an infinitely more 
delicate one than that of a civil judge. His depart- 

267 



268 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ment was religion — to try cases of departure from 
the established and orthodox faith. Bearing this 
exalted ideal of his office in mind, his manner of 
conducting a trial will appear all the more refresh- 
ingly novel. 

The court was held in a public-house called " The 
Swan." Here the burgomaster of Hulst and the other 
town-officials had gathered, and Titelrnan, " by merit 
raised to that bad eminence," presided. A great fire 
burned upon the ample hearth. The first act in the 
proceedings w r as to place the prisoner close to this 
fire. Remembering that his extremities were half 
frozen, we can imagine how grateful to the man's 
feelings the heat of this fire must have been ; we 
are not surprised to learn that he fainted outright. 
When this little episode was past, the trial at once 
began by Titelrnan' s putting the following question 
to the accused : 

"John, inasmuch as we are assembled here to 
learn what are your convictions, I ask you, What is 
your opinion of the Romish Church and the papal 
doctrines ?" 

" I have repeatedly and with all frankness declared 
my convictions," replied De Graef, from whose an- 
swers, for the sake of brevity, we shall select only 
the most telling points. " If, sirs, you can prove 
by the word of the Lord that the faith which I hold 
is erroneous or in the least opposed to the truth, 
I shall abandon it at once ; but if you cannot do 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 269 



this, why do you retain me a prisoner and seek my 
death ?" 

" Do you not believe," was the lucid response of 
the inquisitor to this appeal, " that God is present 
in the Mass in flesh and blood — even as he was 
born of Mary and as he walked, stood, and hung 
upon the cross — especially when the Host is ele- 
vated ?" 

" No, not at all," answered John ; " for, since God 
cannot be confined within temples made by men's 
hands, how can he be shut up within a crumb of bread 
or a chalice ? That this cannot be done you may see 
for yourself in my Testament here," handing Titel- 
man the volume he carried with him. 

At this an ungovernable fury got possession of the 
judge. He snatched the book from John's hands 
and hurled it among the blazing logs, but one of 
the attendants rescued it before it caught fire. After 
estimating the status of J ohn's religious opinions by 
the light of Scripture in this patient and painstaking 
manner, as a " judge of the faith " was bound to do, 
Titelman next resorted to an effusion of Billings- 
gate : 

"Oh, you false prophet, you hellish heretic, you 
wretch, you miscreant !" Such and such like epi- 
thets came in a torrent from the judicial bench. "I 
could strike you in the face," he added, and actually 
leaned forward to administer the proposed chastise- 
ment. 



270 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



One of the town-officials, who felt that this was 
altogether too gross a violation of propriety and 
decency, checked the infuriated inquisitor and 
brought him back to a little better control of his 
feelings. Addressing himself once more to the in- 
vestigation of De Graef's heresy, the inquisitor 
said, 

" How, then, you miscreant ! Will you not be- 
lieve that the Lord your God is in the sacrament ? 
You wicked heretic ! Do you not believe in the 
seven sacraments ? Do you not believe that there 
is a purgatory where souls are purified after death ?" 

" I would gladly believe all this," answered John, 
u if you could prove it to me by God's word." 

Hereupon, Titelman sprang to his feet, exclaim- 
ing, "Are not the things I ask you about found in 
God's word?" and then he poured forth a string 
of apt quotations from the writings of popish au- 
thorities entirely bearing him out. 

John's only reply to this was a dignified silence, 
deeming it beneath him to argue against the child- 
ish teachings of mediaeval monks, when the Bible 
itself was thrown out of consideration in the trial 
to which he was being subjected. 

This silence, however, was quite as provoking to 
Titelman as were John's previous answers. Gnash- 
ing his teeth with vexation, he shouted, 

" You depraved Calvinist ! you devilish heretic ! 
you wretch ! You have a silent devil within you. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



271 



Ha ! ha ! but Fll cast him out ! Do you not trem- 
ble ?" he continued, pointing to the leaping flames 
on the hearth. " We will throw you into such a 
fire and let you be burned to death if you do not 
abandon your faith." 

" I do not fear a fire like this," answered John, 
quietly but firmly, " but rather that everlasting fire 
which is never quenched." 

Seeing that his victim's firmness could not be 
shaken, the inquisitor, in the presence of the town- 
officials, formally pronounced sentence of death 
upon him, and as one who had put himself out- 
side the pale of the Romish Church he delivered 
him, soul and body, into the power of the devil. 

The burgomaster, hoping that gentleness would 
accomplish what Titelman's violence had failed to 
do, now addressed a few words of entreaty to the 
prisoner, begging him to be persuaded of the error 
of his ways ; but when it was seen that fair words 
produced the desired result no better than foul 
words had done, De Graef was remanded to the 
miseries of his dungeon. Two thin slices of rye 
bread, with some rancid butter and a small quantity 
of foul water, was assigned to him for his daily 
rations. 

About the middle of February the whole case as 
it had then progressed — i. e., the confession of the 
prisoner's faith and the investigation before the in- 
quisitor — was laid by the magistrates of Hulst 



272 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



before the supreme council or court of Flanders, 
asking for their decision. These learned gentle- 
men had a wholesome regard fot the favor of the 
king and the safety of their necks, and could not 
but decide that after so clear a confession of heresy 
the accused was to be sentenced to death. The 
supreme court, the inquisitor, the magistrates, all 
concurring in this momentous decision, sentence of 
death was now fully determined upon, and the date 
for its execution was fixed. 

But a slight formality had hitherto been omitted, 
and it was thought that now was the time to attend 
to it. John de Graef had been imprisoned on sus- 
picion of heresy, had been put on trial for his life 
and had been sentenced to death, but as yet he had 
not enjoyed the privilege of legal counsel. The 
sheriff of Hulst insisted that a lawyer be now 
procured in order to make the proceedings regular. 
Accordingly, De Graef dictated to this professional 
person in proper form his answers to the several 
specifications regarding his heresy, proving from 
Scripture that his opinions were not heretical, but 
Catholic and true. This document was presented 
by the lawyer to the magistrates of Hulst, as they 
had requested that he should do. His reception by 
them was, therefore, rather startling : he was vehe- 
mently rebuked for daring to present such a paper 
and commanded to beseech their pardon. He refused 
to do this, saying, "At your own instance I gave 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



273 



my professional aid to the prisoner; all that is 
herein maintained is based upon clear and unmis- 
takable proofs from Scripture, as you may yourself 
see by consulting the Bible. Why, then, should I 
apologize?" The magistrates, however, did not 
waste any time in attempting to answer the unan- 
swerable; they immediately sent in a complaint 
against the honest barrister to the supreme court 
of Flanders. This body condemned the counselor 
to pay a heavy fine and to make a public and hu- 
miliating apology to the magistrates of Hulst. It 
is by just such characteristic incidents as these, which 
can hardly be taken up by the pages of our general 
histories, that we gain an insight clear as the day 
into the condition of those times. 

At noon on Tuesday, February 27, 1565, John 
de Graef was taken from his dungeon and conduct- 
ed to the town-hall. Here his sentence was read to 
him. It condemned him to be strangled at the 
stake, his body to be burned and all his effects to 
be confiscated. When the document had been read, 
the martyr addressed the officials and the assembled 
people with great freedom of speech, declaring the 
truth of Christ and his faith in the doctrines for 
which he was to die. Turning to the magistrates, 
he said, " My lords, you must all at one time appear 
before the judgment-seat of Christ as I stand before 
you to-day, and there every one must give an account 
of his deeds done in the body ; consider, therefore, 

13 



274 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



what you are doing. See to it why you condemn 
me, for I protest that my faith rests upon the foun- 
dation of the prophets and the apostles." 

While the magistrates had been dealing in the 
high-handed manner we have described, the cit- 
izens of Hulst do not seem to have sympathized 
with their action. It was impossible to purchase 
wood and straw, for the purposes of the execution, 
of the dealers residing within the walls of the city. 
The sheriff and his officers met everywhere with flat 
refusals, and it became a question whether the sen- 
tence could be executed at the hour set for it. At 
last a peasant coming into town with a load of wood 
was compelled to deposit it upon the market-place. 1 

When all was ready, John de Graef was led from 
the town-hall ; upon the market-square, in front of 
it, the stake had been erected. As a result of the 
insufferable cold frequently freezing his extremities, 
his toes dropped from his feet, 2 and he limped pain- 
fully along to the place of execution. Yet his spirit, 
sustained by grace, rose superior to the weakness and 
pain of the body, and he cheerfully met his doom. 
He prayed earnestly for the conversion of his per- 
secutors, and said to the spectators, "My dear 
people, I suffer this in the cause of truth ; abide 
ye also in the truth." By order of the magis- 
trates, the executioner hung about his neck the copy 
of the New Testament which he had consulted so 
1 Brandt, Historie, I. p. 271. 2 Ibid. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



275 



diligently, and with which he had so frequently 
supported his opinions. 1 This act of petty spite 
certainly does not redound to their glory, already 
sufficiently tarnished by this whole proceeding. 

As in one or two of the cases lately mentioned, 
a hut of inflammable materials was constructed. 
Into this John de Graef stepped of his own accord 
and placed himself at the stake. Standing there, 
his last words. were, "O Lord God, O heavenly 
Father, have mercy upon me ! O merciful Father, 
receive my spirit !" Then he was strangled, his body 
consumed, and another martyr had sealed with his 
death the truth of the gospel as against the supersti- 
tions of Rome. 2 

1 Brandt, Historic, I. p. 271. 2 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 767. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



HEYNZOON ABRIAANS OF HAARLEM. 
UR first thought when we set foot in Haarlem 



was to look up memorials of its famous siege. 
The duke of Alva supposed that he would soon re- 
duce a town whose fortifications were notoriously 
feeble, but, beginning the siege on December 10, 
1572, it was not till July 12, 1573, that the city 
capitulated. Moreover, it proved a costly victory 
for Spain, twelve thousand veteran soldiers lying 
dead behind the trenches of the besiegers. The 
chief assault on two critical occasions, graphically 
and circumstantially described by Motley, had been 
directed against the Cross Gate and the St. John's 
Gate and the portion of the walls between. We 
found that one very picturesque gate was preserved 
as a relic of former days, but the two just men- 
tioned are no more. We encountered, however, two 
streets at no great distance from and parallel to each 
other, one of which was called the " Cross street " 
and the other " St. John's street." We readily 
surmised that these thoroughfares were named after 
the historic gates ; we needed but to follow the 




276 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 277 



streets to where they crossed the city moat, there- 
fore, to identify the spots occupied by them of old. 
The walls here, as in most other cities, have been 
leveled, and beautiful park-like boulevards have 
taken their place. 

A walk into the heart of the town along either 
street brings us ere long to the " great," or St. Bavo, 
church. Here is the famous organ — the largest in 
the world from about the middle of the last century 
till in the Boston Music Hall there was placed one 
still larger not very many years ago. A solitary 
cannon-ball half embedded in the plaster of the 
south wall, near the pulpit, dates from the siege, 
and was thrown into the city from a Spanish gun. 
Continuing our walk, we find ourselves soon under 
the cool shades of a primeval forest. A long lane 
with four rows of very ancient trees, lofty and um- 
brageous, is called the " Spanish lane," for here the 
German contingent of the Spanish army lay en- 
camped in those trying days. The Haarlem lake 
is no more, and in the stead of its boisterous waters 
smiling meadows of luxuriant pasturage or golden 
fields of grain present themselves to the view. 

Our review of the martyrs of Holland has brought 
us into the very vortex of those stirring events which 
we have already briefly noticed in one of the chap- 
ters of Part I. It may be well to recall them right 
here still more briefly in order to get a correct idea 
of the times at which we have now arrived. These, 



278 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



indeed, still witnessed martyrdoms among other 
things, but they were rapidly preparing the coun- 
try for a state of affairs that would make martyr- 
dom for civil or religious liberty impossible. 

The martyrs whose fate occupied us in the pre- 
vious chapter died, respectively, on February 27, 
1565, and May 1, 1566. Between these dates is 
that of April 5, 1566, when the "Petition of the 
Nobles" was presented at Brussels. The field- 
preachings and the image-breakings follow in quick 
succession during this same year. In 1567, Alva 
came into the land with his army of veterans, and 
as a consequence William of Orange went to Ger- 
many and began hostilities in 1568. The battle of 
Heiligerlee was fought and won on May 23, or 
little more than a month before the martyrdom 
which shall engage our attention in this chapter. It 
will be remembered that toward the close of this 
same year of 1568, in November, the first Synod 
of the Reformed churches met in the city of Wesel, 
on the Rhine. 

In the midst of all these thrilling, painful and 
critical events, in November, 1567, occurred the 
event of most interest to us at present. At that 
time a worthy citizen of Haarlem, Heynzoon Adri- 
aans, was taken into custody on the charge of 
adherence to the Reformed doctrines ; he had been 
converted during one of those frequent field-preach- 
ings in 1566. The first of these remarkable serv- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 279 



ices in the vicinity of Haarlem had been held on 
Sunday, July 22, of that year, in the sandhills near 
the village of Overveen, a mile or two from the 
city. The magistrates had sought to prevent the 
people of Haarlem from attending them, having 
ordered the gates to be kept closed, but several 
burghers climbed over the walls and swam the 
moat, and finally the indignation of the multitudes 
who wished to enjoy this service became so great 
and threatening that the authorities were compelled 
to yield. Later, the services were held nearer the 
city, and at last with considerable regularity in the 
forest already mentioned, not far from the town 
gates. Indeed, the Reformed doctrines gained so 
many adherents that it was deemed expedient to 
grant them some concessions, and thus they were 
permitted to put up a building upon the fields out- 
side the town. 

Adriaans was diligent in his attendance at these 
services, and became very active himself in extend- 
ing the knowledge of the truth. He was a shoe- 
maker by trade, but at the same time president of 
the Pelican, 1 one of the " Rhetorical Chambers" 
prevalent in those days where men of all trades 
tried their hand at literature. He composed sev- 
eral songs of a didactic nature in which he assailed 
Romish errors. One device of his for spreading 
evangelical knowledge among the masses was quite 
1 Brandt, Vol. I. p. 481. 



280 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



ingenious, and, though it would offend the literary 
taste of to-day, was quite in keeping with the pro- 
ductions of many pens more gifted than his own. 
It was called an "echo." A few specimens will 
give a tolerably correct idea of the original, even 
in translation : 

" Where now are the priests and monks who sang as a lark ? 
In the dark. 

" Did their doctrines of God amount to aught ? Naught. 
" Are any of their teachings with God's word at one ? None. 
" Why do priests the people to Masses for the dead constrain ? 
For gain. 

" What are priests and monks and the Jesuits ? Hypocrites. 
" With what are the preachers who speak in the fields in 
accord ? God's word. 

" By whom are they sent into the land abroad ? By God." 

It will be seen that this was excellently adapted 
to the understanding of the common people and 
could easily be retained by the poorest memory. 
Adriaans scattered printed copies of it among such 
of the people as could read, while for the benefit of 
those who could not read he would gather a crowd 
of people around him and then put to his oldest 
son, who accompanied him for that purpose, each 
question as above constructed, who thereupon would 
give the " echo " of the last word as its answer. 

This conspicuous activity on the part of Adriaans 
could not remain unnoticed by the Romish author- 
ities ; they complained against him before the mag- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 281 



istrates. But the world was moving ; the year 1566 
had not passed for nothing ; the spirit of liberty was 
getting abroad^ and the priests could not now so read- 
ily have it all their ow T n way. Besides, Haarlem was 
not in one of the southern provinces, near the seat 
of government, and consequently men were not so 
ready to comply with the requirements of the pla- 
cards here. In short, Adriaans was left unmolested 
for quite a while. But in August, 1567, Don Alva 
had come into the country, the Blood Council was 
soon in full operation and the halcyon days of fast 
and furious persecution were coming back again to 
the Inquisition. In November, 1567, Adriaans was 
arrested. He was placed in confinement in the St. 
John's Gate, destined to figure so prominently in 
the siege, five years later. In this prison he found 
a young man called Barend of Utrecht, also in 
durance for the faith. He had not given evidence 
of his convictions either by preaching or by rhym- 
ing. The charge against him was unique ; it does 
not seem very heinous : he had overturned the 
wooden image of some saint and hacked it to pieces. 
A third prisoner was a certain John Heymen, 
also of Haarlem. His offence was again different. 
When Regent Margaret retracted the meagre priv- 
ileges granted in the summer of 1566 before the 
image-breaking, the people of the city of Valen- 
ciennes — now on French territory, but then in one 
of the Walloon Netherlands, where the Reformed 



282 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



largely predominated — refused to yield what they 
had so recently obtained. They were encouraged 
to this firmness by two preachers, one of whom was 
Guy de Bres, the author of the Belgic Confession. 
The city was declared in a state of siege, and Mar- 
garet sent an army against it. The siege lasted 
from early winter of 1566 to early spring of 1567. 
After the city was taken De Bres was put to death. 
Meanwhile, the struggle had been keenly watched 
all through the provinces, and Count Brederode had 
gone so far as to enlist troops for the relief of Va- 
lenciennes. He was not the man to carry such a 
bold and delicate scheme to success, and his effort 
resulted in irretrievable disaster to himself and to 
all those who had supported him. John Heymen 
had been one of his soldiers, and the offence was 
sufficiently grave, both politically and religiously, 
to warrant his arrest. 

The three companions in misfortune spent the 
winter together in the St. John's Gate, where their 
quarters were not made very comfortable as the 
season grew more severe. But the youth who had 
expended so much wrath upon the wooden saint 
was a source of great consolation to his fellow-suf- 
ferers. He was invariably cheerful; and when 
Adriaans felt depressed as he thought of his eight 
motherless children, Barend sought to impart to him 
some of his own cheer, pointing out to him the strength 
and comfort to be derived from God's promises. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLA ND. 



283 



On J une 29, 1568, the three prisoners were brought 
forth to execution, their sentence having condemned 
them to be put to death by hanging. John Hey- 
men and Barend of Utrecht were each successively 
led from prison and executed ; and when both had 
been expeditiously despatched, Aclriaans was led 
from prison to the market-place. This is shut in 
on the south by the lofty pile of the St. Bavo church, 
while on the west side stands the quaint and unpre- 
tending town-hall, formerly used as a residence by the 
counts of Holland. Arrived here, beneath the gal- 
lows he addressed the spectators, admonishing them 
to renounce their idolatry and to accept the true 
religion. Then, after spending a few moments 
in prayer, he adjusted his dress for the execution. 
The executioner was about to treat him in some 
ignominious manner customary with ordinary crim- 
inals, but Adriaans protested against this, saying, 
"I do not die as a murderer or thief or evil-doer ; 
I die as a Christian." When all was ready for the 
death -penalty, he exclaimed, "Lord, now do unto 
thy servant according to thy promise in the gospel : 
( He that endureth unto the end shall be saved/ " 

A singular natural event suddenly arrested the 
proceedings at this stage : a loud noise was heard 
above men's heads, and for an instant the earth 
seemed to tremble. Whatever it was — very likely 
it was nothing but a sudden clap of thunder — yet, 
coming as it did at this juncture, it greatly startled the 



284 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



multitudes upon the market-place. The executioner 
ran away affrighted, leaving Adriaans standing un- 
harmed upon the ladder ; he accordingly descended 
to the ground. The disturbance in the atmosphere 
passing away as quickly as it had occurred, the 
priests and the monks regained their composure and 
led in an onslaught upon the unfortunate martyr. 
They dragged him with great violence toward the 
town-hall, striking his head against a stone paling 
in front of the building. They hurried him into 
the hall and up one flight of stairs into the council- 
room, where the portraits of the early counts and 
countesses adorned the walls then as now, but where 
now also may be seen a painting of the siege. Here 
they finished the work of death upon Adriaans. 
Next taking his body and that of the two other 
martyrs, they hung them side by side upon a gallows 
outside the city. 

The account in the Gh^oot Martelaarsboek (" Great 
Martyrs' Book ") concludes as follows : " This his- 
tory is taken down from the mouth of the great- 
grandsons of Heynzoon Adriaans, and of some aged 
burghers of the city of Haarlem who were eye- and 
ear- witnesses of it all." 1 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, pp. 846-848 ; Brandt, Vol. I. pp. 481- 
484. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



MARTYRDOMS IN SOUTHERN HOLLAND. 

BY Southern Holland we mean the two provinces 
of North Brabant and Lirnburg, and it will 
soon appear why we group together the martyrdoms 
which occurred in this section of the country or 
emphasize them at all. 

We visited three prominent cities of Southern 
Holland — Breda, Bois-le-duc, or ; S Hertogenbosch 
(the French and Dutch for "the Duke's Forest"), 
and Maastricht. Our recollections of Breda have 
no special significance here ; those of the Bois-le-duc 
and Maastricht are in place. 

The most prominent object of interest in the 
former city is beyond all comparison the St. John's 
church ; it ranks among the three largest churches 
of Holland, and this is saying much when many of 
the others are immense. The cathedral at Utrecht, 
before the nave was demolished by a hurricane in 
1674, and the St. Nicholas church at Kampen, in 
Overyssel, are its only rivals, but these, again, are 
surpassed by St. John's church in richness of archi- 
tectural ornamentation. It had been thirty-four 

285 



286 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



years in process of building when Columbus set out 
for America, and was finished in the year of his 
death. Standing upon the ample square to the 
right of it, a most unique feature arrested our atten- 
tion. The nave rises above roofed aisles, as in all 
great structures of this kind, flying-buttresses ex- 
tending from the walls of the nave to meet the per- 
pendicular buttresses of the lower walls. There 
was nothing unusual in all this. But the ridges of 
these flying-buttresses presented a curious spectacle 
such as we had seen nowhere else, either at Cologne, 
at Brussels, at Antwerp or in any of the cities of 
Holland. Six figures sat astride upon each of them, 
as if they were crawling up toward the gargoyles 
above them, with their backs to the street. Some of 
these looked like peasants carrying bags or baskets ; 
some resembled apes, and may have been meant to 
symbolize imps of darkness. And that this was no 
extravagant conceit of the modern architect who is 
" restoring " the building was evident from the de- 
cayed portions around the choir, where the remains 
of just such figures could still readily be traced. 

But it is into the interior of this church that we 
must go if we would be impressed with the chief 
characteristic of the part of Holland of which we 
are speaking. Where are the bare whitewashed 
walls to which we grow accustomed in the Prot- 
estant cathedrals of the North ? Here is no empty, 
altarless choir ; images and pictures and altars and 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



287 



burning tapers and kneeling votaries all break upon 
the astonished vision. We imagine we must have 
been suddenly transported to Antwerp or to St. 
Gudule's at Brussels, or to some other gorgeous 
temple in Catholic lands. Chapels and shrines re- 
tiring within dimly-lighted nooks, and scores of 
people there mumbling their half-audible prayers 
before the image of some saint of special efficacy, — 
surely these are strange scenes in Holland. True, 
many beautiful Catholic churches may be seen in 
all the Northern cities, but nowhere, not even in 
Breda, had we encountered such preponderance of 
Romanism that the " great," or cathedral, church 
had been retained for that worship for which it had 
been originally built ; for the triumph of the Refor- 
mation in Holland is significantly manifested every- 
where by the fact that Protestants worship in those 
very cathedrals which had once been Rome's. 

On the way from Bois-le-duc, in the northern 
part of North Brabant, to Maastricht, in the utmost 
southern extremity of Limburg and of the kingdom, 
we traversed the whole length of Catholic Holland, 
and we were not permitted to forget where we were. 
At a railroad-junction not far from Bois-le-duc we 
encountered a figure which led our imagination 
away back to the Middle Ages. It was that of a 
monk with bare head and hair streaming in the 
wind, clothed in a coarse brown gown loosely hung 
about him, reaching to the feet and secured at the 



288 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



waist with a rope ; his feet were bare, with sandals 
underneath ; a long, rude stick served as his staff. 
It was somewhat disappointing to see such a speci- 
men of the olden time searching for a seat in a rail- 
way-coach, and entering a second-class compartment 
at that. There was much more congruity about an- 
other person of his order whom not long after we 
saw trudging along on foot on a country-road. 

At Maastricht the cathedral-church — that of St. 
Servatius — is also devoted to the Catholic worship. 
We cannot dwell upon its appearance, with its sug- 
gestions of the days of imperial Rome or its statue 
of Charlemagne. We only mention that here we 
were taken into a " treasure-chamber," and were 
permitted to feast our eyes upon the splendid rel- 
iquary containing the body of St. Servatius entire, 
as well as upon various limbs and bones of saints, 
and even of apostles, set in costly jewels. In short, 
we might as well have been in the similar room con- 
nected with the Cologne cathedral, for it was all just 
as intensely Catholic, and yet we were still on Dutch 
territory. But in Maastricht, of a population of 
twenty-nine thousand, there were twenty-four thou- 
sand Catholics ; in Bois-le-duc, of twenty-five thou- 
sand, the Catholics numbered twenty thousand ; and 
of Breda's eighteen thousand people fifteen thousand 
souls owned the sway of Rome. Hence we may well 
say that " Southern Holland" and " Catholic Hol- 
land" are synonymous terms. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



289 



The political history of the republic of Holland, 
wherewith two of the greatest of American historians 
have made the world acquainted, is so clearly bound 
up with that of the Reformed Church, the revolu- 
tion grew so directly out of the religious persecu- 
tions, that we can hardly think of that country even 
to-day except as identified only and altogether with 
Protestantism. Why, then, is this one part of Hol- 
land so prevailingly Catholic ? A word or two of 
explanation may be of interest. 

North Brabant and Limburg were not included 
among the original seven provinces which formed 
the Dutch republic ; they were still Spanish prop- 
erty while the United Netherlands were free. One 
by one, however, their cities were wrested from the 
power of the foreign despot and held by garrisons 
of the republic. When we look upon maps of the 
Dutch commonwealth as late as the middle of the 
eighteenth century, we observe that these provinces 
are designated by the term to which we alluded in 
a former chapter. They were part of the " General- 
ity," were considered conquered territory and ad- 
ministered as such. This was very unjust toward 
the people of North Brabant, however, for as early 
as 1629, or nineteen years before the Peace of West- 
phalia, which ended the Eighty Years' War, Bois- 
le-duc, its capital, had been taken by the forces of 
the republic. The population of the province were 
heartily in sympathy with the cause of freedom, and 

19 



290 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



frequently petitioned that it be received as a mem- 
ber of the union on an equal footing with the other 
States. The case of Limburg was somewhat differ- 
ent; broken, disconnected bits of its present terri- 
tory belonged to the Crown of Austria and to the 
United Netherlands all the way down to 1785. It 
was not till after the French occupation and the 
times of Napoleon that unity was given to these 
intermingled possessions and they became a homo- 
geneous province. Moreover, not only did not these 
conquered sections form a part of the Protestant 
republic, but they remained as pronouncedly and 
prevalently Catholic as any of the provinces which 
continued obedient to Spain. A Dutch writer sup- 
poses that this was the main reason why the United 
Netherlands were opposed for so long a time to ad- 
mitting North Brabant into their confederation. It 
is, therefore, an interesting and instructive fact that 
upon this soil fell the blood of many of the martyrs 
of Holland. The very contrast between that his- 
toric circumstance and the scenes that may be wit- 
nessed here to-day makes the study of it all the 
more piquant. If here the traditional " seed of the 
Church " has failed to bear fruit, we should not hide 
the fact that the seed fell and the blood of the mar- 
tyrs was shed, for none the less by their sufferings 
the Church of Holland was benefited and enriched, 
the influence being felt in other parts if not here. 
The list of martyrs who were put to death at 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND, 291 



Bois-le-duc — an unusually long one — began with 
four men beheaded and burned in the year 1533. 
In the next year another was sacrificed in the cause 
of truth; and in 1538, Gertrude, wife of William 
Hoogendoorn — the second woman of Holland of 
whom the record of martyrology makes mention — 
was burned at Vucht, a village near Bois-le-duc and 
subject to its magistrates. Again, at the instance of 
the municipality, five persons at once suffered mar- 
tyrdom at the same village in 1542, two women be- 
ing burned alive and one buried alive, while the 
men were both burned. 1 

The next martyrdom to be noticed took place in 
the town of Heusden. Here we are upon Protest- 
ant ground again, although the place is but little 
over five miles west of Bois-le-duc. On the map 
of 1530 it was included within the province of 
South Holland, but now it is a part of North Bra- 
bant. It was in the vicinity of Heusden that the 
Rev. P. H. Scholte was pastor of three country 
churches. The Classis of Heusden suspended him 
from the ministry for favoring the secession in Fries- 
land, and subsequently— now about forty years ago 
— he led to this country a large emigration who 
settled at Pella, Iowa. In Heusden there lived a 
certain estimable burgher, called, from his occupa- 
tion, Jacob the Weaver. Although he was known 
to have embraced the Reformed doctrines, his gentle 
1 Groot Marlelaarsboek, pp. 147, 151, 166, 170. 



292 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



and amiable disposition retained for him even the 
friendship of the Romanists. One among the lat- 
ter, however, proved an exception : this was no less 
a person than the governor of Heusden, a Baron 
Spiering. He determined to crush the heretic, but 
he was aware of the good feeling entertained toward 
Jacob among the citizens, and he did not, therefore, 
venture to arrest him openly. He resided at a 
castle near Heusden ; inducing Jacob to come to 
this place in the way of his business, he seized his 
person and cast him into a dungeon. Every en- 
deavor was made during a prolonged confinement 
to move the prisoner from his faith. When this was 
seen to be hopeless, Spiering brought him before the 
magistrates at Heusden, who, at the instance of the 
governor, condemned him to be beheaded upon the 
market-place. This happened in the year 1566. 1 

Two years later Peter of Cologne, a goldsmith, 
and his domestic, Betsy, suffered martyrdom at 
Breda. As we have seen, this city is largely Cath- 
olic to-day. The barony of Breda was the personal 
property of the prince of Orange, and, in 1590, 
Maurice, the son of William, captured it from the 
hands of the Spaniards by as neat and heroic a 
stratagem as is to be found in the annals of war. 
The above-named Peter had for quite a while 
served as one of the elders in the Reformed con- 
gregation. He labored very diligently for their up- 
1 Qroot Martelaarsboek, p. 795. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 293 



building, and gave them the use of his own house 
for their assemblies. Such prominence in the cause 
of the Reformation could not long remain without 
its usual penalty. Toward the close of 1567 he 
was arrested by the authorities and cast into the 
common jail. Here he was visited by many of 
his fellow-Christians, until the magistrates ordered 
him to be confined at the castle of Breda. This was 
a sort of palace and citadel combined ; as remodeled 
by William III. of Orange, king of England, in 
1696, it still exists, and is used to-day as a military 
school where officers are trained for the army. He 
was entirely cut off from his friends here, but he 
was permitted to retain in his service a domestic by 
the name of Betsy. The latter had herself been 
converted to the new faith, and, being well versed 
in Scripture and enjoying a rich Christian expe- 
rience, she was a source of great spiritual comfort 
to her master. But this at last came to the knowl- 
edge of his persecutors, whereupon the faithful 
woman was also placed under arrest. Two months 
later, on May 29, 1568 — six days after the battle 
of Heiligerlee, the Lexington of the Dutch revolu- 
tion — the two martyrs were led forth to execution. 
Peter had been nearly a year in prison, and had 
been subjected to cruel tortures at several exami- 
nations. On their way to the market-place their 
brethren and sisters in the faith, who made up a 
great part of the attending crowds, bemoaned their 



294 A CHUBCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



fate in audible manner, but Betsy spoke cheerfully 
to them, saying that she feared not them that killed 
the body — that she was going to Christ, her Bride- 
groom. Then both she and her master threw them- 
selves upon their knees in prayer, and with the name 
of God upon their lips they expired among the 
flames. 1 

1 Groot MartelaarsboeJc, pp. 842, 843. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



MARTYRDOMS IN SOUTHERN HOLLAND. — 
CONTINUED. 

WE return now to a brief notice of a few more 
martyrdoms which occurred in the city of 
Bois-le-duc, the capital of North Brabant — a place 
where, in spite of this courageous and painful wit- 
nessing, the light of the Reformation seems to have 
quite failed, even to the present day, to dispel the 
darkness of Romish superstition. 

In one month — that of July, 1568 — no less than 
five persons suffered death for their faith upon the 
market-place of Bois-le-duc. On the 16th four were 
hanged at once, but history, besides mentioning their 
names and occupations, gives no particulars of their 
arrest or execution. 

On the 20th, Michael Rombouts was executed. 
He had been dragged from his bed in the night in 
August, 1567 — the very month in which Alva came 
into the country. Rombouts was an aged man of 
high social standing and very much beloved by his 
fellow-townsmen. He was placed in confinement in 
one of the city gates, which often served such pur- 

295 



296 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



poses. His age did not save him from the usual 
examination by torture, which, added to an impris- 
onment of eleven months, told severely upon the 
worthy old man. He had acted as deacon in the 
secret Reformed congregation, and special activity 
in the cause of heresy such as this always brought 
after it the more cruel treatment. On the day set 
for his execution a riot nearly occurred, and, some 
German mercenaries charging upon the people, sev- 
eral were wounded and some killed. Quiet was 
restored, however, and while Eombouts was pour- 
ing forth his heart in prayer previous to ascending 
the gallows he was distinctly heard to beseech the 
Lord that he would vouchsafe some sign which 
should attest his innocence. "No sooner, accord- 
ingly, had he been pushed off the ladder by the exe- 
cutioner than there occurred such a sudden dark- 
ness and fearful storm of wind, hail and thunder 
and lightning that it seemed as if the end of the 
world had come. Before and after the execution 
of the sentence not a cloud was to be seen in the 
sky, while the storm had extended to a not much 
greater distance than three or four miles beyond the 
city in all directions. Doubtless, God meant in this 
way to bear testimony to the rightfulness of the 
martyr's cause." 1 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 848. We can find no account of 
this singular occurrence in any other authority ; we give it, 
therefore, for what it is worth to any one, on the assertion of 
this single, no doubt conscientious, compiler. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 297 



We notice briefly that in the very next month, 
August, 1568, four citizens of Bois-le-duc were 
hanged and one was beheaded on account of their 
adherence to the Reformation ; 1 after which, we 
observe that this same city, reeking with the blood of 
so many martyrs, contributed one of its citizens to the 
roll of those executed at Antwerp. His name was 
Goris, a tinsmith by trade. He went to live at 
Antwerp after his conversion, which occurred when 
he was fifty years old. He joined the congregation 
of the Reformed, who still maintained their exist- 
ence there all through the terrific administration of 
the duke of Alva. Becoming very active and fre- 
quently opening his house to their assemblies, he 
became an object of persecution by the priests. But 
Alva was no longer in the land and the Blood 
Council had ceased to be, and the ecclesiastics at first 
could only procure his banishment from the city. 
Goris went to the province of Holland, where the 
siege of Leyden was now (1574) in progress, and 
where the first Synod that was ever held within 
Dutch territory met, in the city of Dort, in June of 
that year. Remaining here but a short time, he 
ventured to return to Antwerp to effect some final 
business settlements. No sooner had he entered the 
province of Brabant, however, than he was arrested. 
This occurred at Breda, October 3, 1574, the very 
day of the relief of Leyden. He was conveyed to 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 851. 



298 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Antwerp and subjected to exceptionally severe tor- 
tures to make him reveal his friends, but it availed 
nothing. Goris was burned alive and his body con- 
sumed to ashes on October 21, 1574. 1 

One more case claims our attention in the present 
connection. We can hardly call it a martyrdom, 
and yet it illustrates very vividly the malignant 
rage of the priests of Rome against the adherents of 
the Reformed faith. Neesken de Greef, a woman 
eighty years of age, was for many years a member 
of the secret congregation at Bois-le-duc. In 1581 
she fell dangerously ill, and her neighbors made 
known the fact to the priest of St. John's church, 
Masius by name, who afterward became bishop of 
Bois-le-duc. He hastened to the bedside of the 
aged lady, not aware that she was affected by the 
hated heresy. He had accordingly taken the Host 
with him, and proceeded to administer extreme unc- 
tion. She promptly arrested the ceremony, how- 
ever, to the horror of the priest, by exclaiming, 
" Go out from my presence ! I have a living God 
in the heavens who will save me." In a few mo- 
ments she breathed her last. She could not, there- 
fore, be dealt with in the ordinary manner and be 
condemned to suffer death for her faith ; neverthe- 
less, the priest resolved to have his revenge upon 
the senseless remains. Her body was dragged on a 
hurdle to the market-place and buried amid impo- 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 941. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



299 



tent indignities beneath the gallows. But in 1629, 
when Bois-le-duc was taken by the State's troops, 
the body was removed and buried in an honorable 
manner beneath the pavement of the St. John's 
cathedral, which at that time was handed over to 
the use of the Reformed Church. 1 

We have hitherto noticed only the martyrs who 
suffered upon the soil of North Brabant, while the 
subject of these two chapters requires us to record 
also those of the other province constituting South- 
ern, or Catholic, Holland. We have no record of 
individual martyrdoms endured at Maastricht, but 
history furnishes us with two incidents which show 
that in these southern parts the people could strug- 
gle and die for their religion as heroically as the 
citizens of Zutphen, Naarden and Haarlem in the 
North. 

In 1576, by a sudden and bold exertion of patri- 
otic bravery, the people of Maastricht had driven 
the Spaniards from the city. Their triumph was 
but momentary; the Spanish troops regained the 
place. " Maastricht was recovered/' says Motley, 
" and indiscriminate slaughter instantly avenged its 
temporary loss. The plundering, stabbing, drown- 
ing, burning, ravishing, were so dreadful that, in 
the words of a contemporary historian, 'the bur- 
ghers who had escaped the fight had reason to 
think themselves less fortunate than those who died 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 945 ; Brandt, Historie, Vol. I. p. 688. 



300 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



with arms in their hands/ " This sounds very 
much like a description of Zutphen's calamity. 
But, while Zutphen and Naarden were visited once, 
Maastricht had a second baptism of blood. Zut- 
phen and Naarden did not endure the horrors of 
a siege like that of Haarlem ; Maastricht bore all 
that Haarlem did besides. In March, 1579, the 
prince of Parma appeared before it with a large 
and well-equipped army. Boldly were his assaults 
resisted. Motley tells us how the citizens fought 
for their hearths and homes and faith : " All were 
armed to the teeth and fought with what seemed 
superhuman valor. The women, fierce as tigresses 
defending their young, swarmed to the walls and 
fought in the foremost rank. They threw pails 
of boiling water on the besiegers, they hurled fire- 
brands in their faces, they quoited blazing pitch- 
hoops with unerring dexterity about their necks." 
This seems like an echo of the siege of Haarlem, 
wherewith we are more familiar. But Haarlem's 
citizens were attacked only twice and only at one 
point each time, whereas, while this desperate de- 
fence just described was going on at the Bois-le-duc 
gate another attack was going on at the Tongres gate, 
on the opposite side of the city ; and when both had 
been successfully resisted, a third assault was made 
at the Brussels gate a few weeks later. The city 
was taken by surprise in the end, and then came 
the second massacre. " A cry of agony arose," says 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



301 



Motley, " which was distinctly heard at the distance 
of a league. On the first day four thousand men 
and women were slaughtered. The massacre lasted 
two days longer. It was said that not four hun- 
dred citizens were left alive after the termination of 
the siege." Yes, and that explains the reason why, 
after this wholesale martyrdom for the cause of the 
Reformed faith, the city is still, in the nineteenth 
century, almost wholly given to Roman superstition. 
The place was depopulated, and those who were in- 
troduced to take the place of the slain were obedient 
to the ancient faith. 

Before we dismiss the consideration of Catholic 
Holland it seems but just to take note of one cir- 
cumstance not usually emphasized by Protestant 
historians. Let it be observed, then, that while, as 
we said before, the political history and the relig- 
ious history of Holland go hand in hand, and the 
country seems naturally identified with Protestant- 
ism alone, yet the earliest movements in the cause 
of patriotism were by no means confined to the 
Protestants only. The Compromise — the earliest 
league against oppression — was signed by two thou- 
sand nobles and united Catholics and Reformed in 
one common endeavor to stop the outrages of des- 
potism. The "Petition of the Nobles," presented 
in 1566, sought relief from the infringements of the 
country's liberties as well as from the inhuman per- 
secutions of the Inquisition, yet a very small pro- 



302 



A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



portion of these petitioners were of the Reformed 
faith. The first serious alienation of Catholics from 
the cause of freedom was occasioned by the fierce 
outburst of image-breaking in the summer of 1566, 
but even after this William of Orange succeeded, 
ten years later, in uniting all the seventeen provinces 
in a compact against the Spanish oppression and 
the Spanish Inquisition. This triumph of states- 
manship was called the "Pacification of Ghent," 
and but two of all the provinces entering into this 
combination for political and religious liberty were 
distinctively Protestant — namely, Holland and Zee- 
land. 

King Philip, too, well understood this position 
of the Catholics of the provinces. He did not con- 
template their exemption from the butcheries to be 
achieved by the duke of Alva. "Early in the 
year," says Motley, " the most sublime sentence of 
death was promulgated which has ever been pro- 
nounced since the creation of the world. Upon 
the 16th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy 
Inquisition condemned all the inhabitants of the 
Netherlands to death as heretics. A proclamation 
of the king dated ten days later confirmed this 
decree of the Inquisition and ordered it to be car- 
ried into instant execution." Prescott, indeed, 
doubts whether this monstrous sentence was really 
pronounced, basing his doubt upon the insufficiency 
of testimony supporting it, but Motley writes later, 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



303 



and cites more authorities than Prescott refers to. 
At any rate, Egmond and Hoorn, who were be- 
headed but a few months after this decree, on June 
5, 1568, were most devout Catholics. Their only 
offence was that they had loved their country too 
well. 

Common oppression and a common doom, there- 
fore, united Catholics and Reformed in the defence 
of their country's liberties. While these measures 
on the part of king and prelates doubtless contrib- 
uted largely toward turning Catholics from a re- 
ligion wherewith oppression and persecution were 
unhappily identified, there was no reason why a 
Catholic should not be a good patriot while remain- 
ing attached to the old faith. Many did remain 
attached, even in the northern provinces, and 
shared in the glories and the benefits of the sub- 
sequent republic. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



HERMAN SCHINKEL OF DELFT. 
S we walked the streets of Delft uppermost in 



our thoughts was the recollection of one who 
was here cruelly put to death, and yet whose name 
does not appear upon the roll of Holland's martyr- 
ology. Yet he died in this manner as the result of 
his religious opinions, for his championship of the 
Reformed faith, for his unselfish devotion to the 
cause of religious liberty as opposed to the spiritual 
tyranny of Rome. We mean, of course, William 
of Orange, the father of his country, the most illus- 
trious and exalted personality that moves upon the 
stage of history during those troublous and critical 
days of the sixteenth century. On Tuesday, July 
10, 1584, he was shot down by the hand of an assas- 
sin hired by the king of Spain, inspired to a fearless 
fanaticism by the urgency of pope and prelates with 
their extravagant promises of spiritual advantage 
and heavenly glory if he would accomplish this das- 
tardly deed. We made a point of visiting Delft on 
July 10, and on this date in 1886, three hundred 
and two years after the sad event, we stood in the 




MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 305 



narrow vestibule where Orange fell, and saw upon 
the wall the print of the bullets that passed through 
his royal heart. It was the most illustrious mar- 
tyrdom the soil of Holland ever witnessed, for Or- 
ange fell not only for the Reformed faith, but for 
true religious liberty — a thing in which the nine- 
teenth century has scarcely yet come up to his ideas ; 
he fell not only for the republic of Holland, but for 
human freedom and the people's rights the world 
over. 

The murder of William the Silent has invested 
Delft with a melancholy fame, but the city has also 
bright associations, and it stands immortalized in 
the "Keramos" of Longfellow, who sings enthu- 
siastically : 

"Yon pretty town 
Is Delft, with all its wares displayed — 
The pride, the market-place, the crown 
And centre of the potter's trade." 

In Delft, too, was born Hugo Grotius, the most 
gigantic intellect of his age, and here Leeuwenhoek, 
a humble burgher, invented the microscope and be- 
gan that series of investigations with it which have 
astounded the world and created whole departments 
of science. And Delft, finally, claims our notice as 
the birthplace of a martyr and the scene of his mar- 
tyrdom. 

On the 8th of April, 1568, Herman Schinkel, 1 
1 Brandt, Historie, etc., Vol. I. pp. 482-484. 
20 



306 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



master of arts, a man noted for his learning, was 
placed under arrest by the magistrates of his city. 
It was in the midst of momentous events and on 
the eve of still greater that this arrest took place. 
William of Orange was in the field ; the Eighty 
Years' War had begun, but it had not yet affected 
the towns of the interior : they were still waiting 
for results. The municipal governments especially 
were exceedingly conservative and marvelously care- 
ful to observe the wishes of the king, since Alva and 
his eleven thousand veterans had come, and while 
the Blood Council was in the full swing of its san- 
guinary work. 

Accordingly, even though it was as late as the 
year 1568 and within a month of the patriot victory 
at Heiligerlee, the Delft magistrates apprehended 
their learned townsman — according to some, a pro- 
fessor in one of the high schools of the city — on an 
apparently insignificant charge. As was frequently 
the case in those days, the man of learning was also 
a printer and publisher. He was accused of having 
published certain books forbidden by the king's pla- 
cards. He employed several lines of defence with 
great ingenuity, but without avail. His first move 
on his appearance before the municipal court was 
intended to throw his judges off their base by an 
appeal to the stirring events in the midst of which 
they were living. In consequence of the mighty 
popular movement in favor of the Reformation 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 307 



manifested by the great audiences at field-preaching 
services, even the regent Margaret had become some- 
what inclined to compromise. When the " Petition 
of the Nobles " came before her, therefore, she con- 
sented to leave the placards somewhat in abeyance 
until the reply of King Philip could be obtained. 
To this suspension of the placards Schinkel appealed 
to invalidate the right of the magistracy to arrest 
him on their authority, but the magistrates were too 
well aware of Alva's rule to dare sustain their pris- 
oner's defence on this ground. He then frankly 
confessed that he had printed a volume of versified 
Psalms, the Catechism, the Confession of Faith, the 
Shorter Confession of the Christian faith translated 
from the Latin of Beza, and a little book treating 
of the Lord's Supper. Brandt does not specify what 
catechism or confession is meant, but, as the Hei- 
delberg Catechism was published in 1563, and 
had been adopted, together with the Belgic Confes- 
sion of Guy de Bres, at the Convention or Synod of 
the Reformed churches held at Antwerp in May, 
1566, there can be little doubt that these two stand- 
ards of our faith are referred to. Now, in regard 
to these books, he maintained that there could be no 
offence in having printed them. The last, on the 
Lord's Supper, had been placed in his hands in 
manuscript by a preacher who had translated it 
from the German. As for the others, they had 
been repeatedly printed in Holland without leading 



308 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



to prosecution therefor, for, according to an ordi- 
nance proceeding from the prince of Orange as 
stadtholder of the province for the king, it was pro- 
hibited to print " spiteful, scandalous and notorious" 
books, but books on Christian doctrines could not be 
interpreted as belonging to such a category. Even 
on this subject, however, controversial books which 
were full of bitterness he was wont to avoid pub- 
lishing. He reminded the magistrates, also, that he 
had been summoned to appear two or three times 
before them at the town-hall, and that they had 
then simply enjoined him to be careful not to print 
" spiteful things." His next plea gives us a vivid 
insight into the fact that the ancient religion was 
rapidly losing its hold upon the people of Holland. 
He claimed that he pursued the trade of print- 
ing mainly as a business, and not to propagate any 
special teachings ; in consideration of his making a 
living, he had to print that which would sell most 
readily. The books he had mentioned were in uni- 
versal demand ; everybody was reading them. On 
the other hand, he had lost heavily by the printing 
of a large quantity of Romish hymn-books. " The 
times ran so that he could sell none of these." 

During SchinkePs confinement in prison, which 
lasted more than fifteen weeks, he was taken seri- 
ously ill, so that his life was despaired of. He had 
a petition served upon the magistrates while he was 
sick, asking to be discharged on bail. He cited the 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 309 



case of two citizens of Antwerp — one a printer, the 
other a wood-engraver — to whom such a privilege 
had been granted in similar circumstances, and this, 
as a precedent, would warrant the magistrates of 
Delft to do the same for him ; but neither the plea 
nor the legal learning supporting it had any effect 
upon his judges. 

The Schepens — a name and function derived from 
the Roman scabini or judices — were the municipal 
court in Dutch cities. There was, of course, no such 
thing in Holland as our jury system. These Sche- 
pens were a jury of judges, and varied in number 
from five to seven or nine ; in Delft there were seven 
of these functionaries. About the middle of July, 
1568, the trial of Herman Schinkel rested, and his 
case was left to their decision. So skillful and varied 
had been his defence that no less than six were con- 
vinced of their duty to release him, as nothing had 
been proved against him worthy of punishment un- 
der the laws or privileges of the town or province. 
It does not appear that the one of their number who 
differed from them tried to bring forward any ar- 
guments to convince the others that their prisoner 
was guilty. He chose, however, a more potent 
method of persuasion : he bade them reflect what 
would be the consequence of drawing down upon 
their heads the displeasure and wrath of the king, 
as would certainly occur if they allowed the ac- 
cused to go free. The terrors of the prospect thus 



310 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



suggested to their minds brought all the six over to 
the side of the one, and Herman Schinkel was con- 
demned to die by the sword. With such a record 
behind him, it is not pleasant to learn that the time- 
serving Schepen was ever honored by the republic. 
But Brandt remarks : " Of this seventh man it is 
told that four years later, when a change had taken 
place, he quickly turned his coat with the turn in 
affairs, and was employed at The Hague in very 
high offices." 

Herman Schinkel displayed a remarkable com- 
posure and fearlessness while looking forward to the 
violent death before him. He was in the flower of 
his manhood — scarcely thirty-two years of age ; he 
had a fair young wife, whom he dearly loved, and 
three children, twin-daughters about six years old 
and an infant son of about one year and a half. On 
the day before his execution, and on the day itself, 
he wrote several affectionate letters to his wife and 
his children. Those to his wife breathed a spirit of 
firm resignation to his own fate and gave evidence 
of a deep and strong love for her. He wrote to 
each of the little girls and left a letter for his baby- 
boy, full of paternal solicitude for his welfare, to be 
read by him when he should be able. His unparal- 
leled calmness in view of death has been carefully 
recorded by learned friends. Two or three hours 
before he suffered martyrdom he wrote two Latin 
poems inscribed to two of his acquaintances. One 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



311 



Van Hoorn, who accompanied him to the scaffold, 
in a subsequent writing gives him the title of " the 
despiser of death," for on the way to his execution, 
while conversing about the consolations in death, 
Schinkel took occasion quietly to remind his friend 
of a passage in Seneca's " Octavia " (the forty-second 
line) where, in his judgment, instead of Tamais, 
the text should read Thamesis. We may think it 
somewhat strange that a man with such iron nerves 
and so perfectly void of a dread of death did not 
improve the moment of his execution by addressing 
words of encouragement and exhortation to the by- 
standers. He passed away with silent lips, but with 
strong heart, relying upon God, whose truth he had 
helped to disseminate by the mighty agency of the 
press. 

Herman Schinkel was beheaded on July 23, 1568, 
the day before the duke of Alva had completed his 
campaign of retaliation in the North. The disgrace 
to the Spanish arms sustained in the first pitched 
battle of the Eighty Years' War had been wiped out 
in the battle of Jemmingen, on July 22. The vic- 
tory of patriotism, with all its bright hopes, had 
been smothered in blood, the army of freedom had 
been utterly annihilated, and now the whole country 
lay in abject, groveling fear at the feet of the inhu- 
man governor, to be scourged with scorpions, to be 
drained of blood and treasure, to complete the meas- 
ure of the eighteen thousand six hundred victims 



312 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



which it was Alva's boast had been sacrificed by him 
to compel obedience to despotism and to quench the 
life of the Reformation. One grand soul yet bore 
up amid these overwhelming waves of trouble, but in 
November of this same year ill-fortune had driven 
William of Orange too, defeated and disheartened, 
from the country he had come to save. The night 
of gloom hung dark and heavy over the land for 
nearly four years before another ray of hope pene- 
trated the gloom and liberty for Church and State 
began to rise again above the horizon of possibility. 



CHAPTEE XX. 



FOUR CONVERTED PRIESTS. 
E do not in our branch of the Church of the 



* ' Reformation insist upon the efficacy or neces- 
sity of apostolic succession to make valid ordination 
to the ministry of the gospel. The Anglican Church 
rests secure in the descent of apostolic grace upon 
her priests because her founders received ordination 
from the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, 
which is the link between the times of the Ref- 
ormation and the times of the apostles ; but if we 
deemed it worth while to emphasize the same fact 
in regard to the ministry of the Reformed Church 
of Holland, we could easily establish their claim 
to some sort of apostolic succession. Among the 
clergy of the Romish Church the Reformation 
found its earliest adherents and its foremost preach- 
ers. There were, indeed, no bishops, but John Pis- 
torius was a priest, Henry Zutphen was prior of a 
monastery, Peter Gabriel, one of the earliest field- 
preachers, was a monk and priest, and in the pres- 
ent chapier we shall notice the martyrdom of four 
priests at once. It is more than supposable that 




313 



314 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



these men, and many more whose names have not 
come down to us, prepared others to propagate the 
gospel, and in a manner, if not officially, yet act- 
ually, transmitted to these others ministerial charac- 
ter and functions. 

In traveling by rail from the city of Alkmaar to 
that of Helder, in the province of North Holland, we 
remember seeing a beautiful brick church with light 
sandstone trimmings, built in the cruciform style and 
of very generous proportions. It was an edifice in 
every way worthy of some of our own finest ave- 
nues and quite on a par for size and elegance with 
the largest churches of our own country. Yet this 
was but a village church. The place rejoiced in the 
not very musical name of Schagen, numbering about 
twenty-six hundred inhabitants. One of the priests 
whose death we shall soon notice, Sybrand Jansen, 
was pastor of this village. Two others, Arend Vos 
and Walter Sim onsen, were the pastors, respectively, 
of the villages of Lier and Monster, in the province 
of South Holland, near the city of Delft. Mon- 
ster is to-day a place of over four thousand inhabit- 
ants, and is situated near the seashore ; Lier num- 
bers but nine hundred people, and is much farther 
inland. But the region where these places are 
located is noted for its productive soil, and is 
usually designated the " garden of Holland." The 
fourth priest, Adrian Jansen — not related to Sybrand, 
so far as we can learn from the record — was pastor 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



315 



of the village of Ysselmonde, near Rotterdam. 
This place derives its name from the fact that it 
is situated immediately opposite the point where 
the river Yssel makes its junction with the waters 
of the Maas. 

These four villages being all situated within the 
province of Holland — not then divided into South 
and North — the pastors were summoned to appear 
before the court of Holland, which sat in The 
Hague, to answer charges of heresy preferred against 
them. They were thrown into prison while await- 
ing their trial, which did not occur until nearly two 
years after their apprehension. This prison was the 
Gevangenpoort, or Prison-Gate, in the heart of the 
city. It does not seem, however, that they were 
subjected to very great hardships, or even restric- 
tions. They enjoyed visits from several friends 
from different provinces ; they frequently wrote to 
their wives and families, and were not forbidden to 
address epistles full of pastoral instruction, advice 
and exhortation to different churches besides their 
own where the faith of the Reformation had pene- 
trated. They even enjoyed the privilege of theo- 
logical disputations with sundry Anabaptists con- 
fined in the same prison. It does not appear that 
they succeeded in convincing them of their errors, 
but Arend Vos recorded the dialogues which he 
himself held with them and published them in 
book-form, and this production was considered a 



316 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



valuable contribution to the literature of the con- 
troversy on this subject. 

At last, on the 10th of May, 1570, the four pris- 
oners were brought from their cell and placed before 
a spiritual court presided over by a regular inquisi- 
tor. This officer examined them in regard to their 
abandonment of the priestly office, their acceptance 
of another religion, their sentiments concerning * 
the pope, how many sacraments they recognized, 
their opinions about the marriage of priests, and 
more such matters. Their replies, of course, were 
of a nature to bring down upon them the condem- 
nation of death for heresy. As the spiritual court 
could not pronounce sentence of death, the case was 
handed over to the civil authorities ; but these could 
not condemn a priest to death, hence the ceremony 
of degradation from the priesthood had to be per- 
formed upon the delinquents. 

This took place on May 27. The four prison- 
ers were conducted to a large room where were 
assembled the judges of the spiritual court and 
many other dignitaries. The bishop of Bois-le- 
duc and two abbots were charged with the perform- 
ance of the ceremony. The converted priests were 
compelled to don the full canonical garments of their 
office, which they had now discarded for a long time. 
The bishop then approached them and with a silver 
knife scraped the tips of their fingers, because these 
had held the Host. He then shaved the hair from 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 317 



the crown of the head of each, where the consecrat- 
ing oil had been applied, and likewise scraped the 
bare scalp with the knife. Next the officiating 
dignitaries removed their priestly garments, saying 
to each in turn while this process w T ent on, " Exuo 
te vestem justitice, quam volens abjeeisti" ("I de- 
prive thee of the robe of righteousness, which thou 
hast willfully cast off"). When this formula was 
pronounced over Arend Vos, the most aged of 
their number, he replied, " Imo vestem injustitice " 
( a Yea, the robe of unrighteousness"). 

The four subjects of this silly and meaningless 
ceremony did not fail to speak their minds to the 
assembled dignitaries of the Church and the State. 
Among other things, they boldly charged them with 
knowing better than to treat them in such a manner. 
Hereupon the officiating bishop laid his hand upon 
his heart and solemnly took his oath, calling God 
to witness that he knew no better than that he had 
acted according to the will of God, and that he had 
no other conviction than that the Roman Catholic 
religion was the only saving one. The aged Arend 
Vos, who had once lived upon terms of close inti- 
macy with the bishop, here interposed and reminded 
him in the hearing of all that he had formerly held 
quite other convictions, but that he had iniquitously 
suppressed them, and that for this he would be called 
to a strict account in the day of the Lord. This 
created a sensation among those present, the more 



318 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



so as they observed that the bishop trembled as he 
went on with the ceremony. 

While the desecrated priests were remanded to 
prison to await their doom shortly, the bishop of 
Bois-le-duc and his abbots were entertained at a 
sumptuous banquet. They indulged so freely in the 
good things set before them that at the close they 
had to be assisted to their carriages The contrast 
was not lost upon the public. It was said by many, 
" Such impure and noxious persons play the master 
and are honored by men, while the godly and virtu- 
ous preachers are put to death for their good teach- 
ings and conduct." 

Late in the evening of May 29 it was announced 
to the four pastors that on the morrow their sentence 
would be executed upon them. They immediately 
gave themselves up to holy exercises in order to 
prepare their hearts for the ordeal. Besides fervent 
prayers privately offered up or spoken audibly by 
each in turn, they engaged in the communion of 
the Lord's Supper as best they could under their 
distressing circumstances and the severe restrictions 
to which they were now subjected. On the follow- 
ing day, May 30, 1570, they were taken before the 
court and the sentence was formally pronounced : 
they were to be strangled at the stake and their 
bodies consumed by fire. Hereupon they gave pub- 
lic expression of their gratitude to God for deeming 
them worthy of suffering for his truth, and em- 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



319 



braced one another and exchanged the kiss of peace. 
Then they were conducted back to prison. 

Immediately after their return, Arend Vos, pastor 
of Lier, was conveyed to the scaffold. He ascended 
the platform with joy depicted upon his aged coun- 
tenance. He addressed the assembled multitude, 
exhorting them to pray for him and saying that 
he was ready to die for what he had done in pro- 
moting the true knowledge of the Saviour; then, 
turning toward the stake, he fell down upon his 
knees and prayed aloud, the people answering with 
an u Amen !" when he had done. Rising to his feet, 
he placed himself against the stake of his own accord, 
crying, " Father,, into thy hands I commit my spirit. 
O Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me !" As the 
noose was being adjusted and was gradually tight- 
ened around his neck he repeated the several clauses 
of the Lord's Prayer in Latin ; and when he had 
reached " Forgive us our debts," he feel asleep in 
the Lord. 

When he had expired, Sybrand Jansen, pastor of 
Schagen, was brought from prison ; no one could 
detect the least fear or perturbation in his counte- 
nance as he stepped upon the scaffold. Turning to 
the insensible corpse of his friend, he said, " Farewell, 
my dear brother, Arend Vos !" He then laid aside 
his cloak and fell upon his knees, the people again re- 
sponding with an " Amen !" to the martyr's prayer, 
He was then strangled at the stake. 



320 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



Next, Adrian Jansen, pastor of Ysselmonde, was 
led forth to execution. His father approached him 
on the way from prison and said, " My dear son, 
bear thyself piously, for there is laid up for thee the 
crown of eternal life." He would have said more, 
but he was pushed aside by the officers. Adrian's sis- 
ter also succeeded in forcing herself to his side, and 
said, " Dear brother, battle bravely ; it will not last 
long, and eternal life is awaiting thee !" He pre- 
sented an interesting appearance, being a young man 
of evident good breeding and cultivation. Many 
were moved to tears as they saw him about to be 
subjected to so dire a fate. To his fervent supplica- 
tions for pardon and strength the people again re- 
sponded. Rising from his knees, he went volun- 
tarily to the stake and kissed it. While the noose 
was being placed about his neck he cried in the hear- 
ing of all, " Beware, dear brethren and sisters, of 
the accursed idolatry which is still daily practiced 
by the papal Church." In a few moments he 
breathed his last. 

Last of all, Walter Simonsen, pastor of Monster, 
was conducted from his prison. He had been suf- 
fering for some time from illness, but he showed no 
less firmness than his predecessors at the moment of 
death. He thanked the Lord that he had permitted 
him to be a partaker of the sufferings of Christ, that 
he might thus also be glorified with him. He placed 
himself with great composure before the stake 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 321 



reserved for him, while the people observed with 
wonder that he looked without any signs of con- 
sternation upon the distorted bodies of his com- 
panions. When life had departed, his body and 
those of the other martyrs were consigned to the 
flames. 1 

1 Groot Martelaarsboek, pp. 873-886. 

21 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE LAST MARTYRS.— CONCLUSION. 

HENRY SCHOUTEN, a native of The Hague, 
was summoner of the supreme court at Mech- 
lin, and also of the court of Holland, in his native 
city. Being under concern of mind on the subject 
of religion, he cast about for the best manner in 
which to worship and serve God and attain the sal- 
vation of his soul. He found the world in a veri- 
table turmoil of opinions. He did not find satis- 
faction in the ancient religion in which he had been 
brought up. Among the Reformed he found a con- 
fusion of tongues like that at Babel. At one time he 
listened to the Anabaptists ; the Lutherans had an- 
other message of salvation : the Calvinists came to 
him with still a different one. At last, however, he 
gave his adherence to the Reformed or Calvinistic 
opinions, which were fast gaining the upper hand in 
Holland and Zeeland. 

This happened some time during the year 1566. 
As we have seen in previous chapters, some scanty 
privileges had at that time been forced from the 
regent Margaret. Having been chosen an elder in 

322 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



323 



the congregation at The Hague, Schouten had thrown 
open his house for the assemblies of the faithful. 
But early in 1567, when Alva was expected and the 
former restrictions were applied again in all their 
force, Schouten came into difficulty on account of 
his activity in the cause of the Reformed ; he ac- 
cordingly fled to Germany. After his departure his 
wife still invited the congregation to meet at her 
house, but at last, having left home in order to meet 
her husband, she, as well as her husband, was ban- 
ished from the city and their goods were confiscated. 
For a time they lived at Dantzig in Germany, but 
later they moved to England. Here Schouten pur- 
chased a vessel and engaged in commerce. When, 
at one time, he had been driven by stress of weather 
to seek shelter on the Texel coast, he was detained 
there for sixteen weeks, and was betrayed by one of 
his mates. The ship was taken to Enkhuizen, 
where Schouten was thrown into prison, but after a 
few days he was conveyed to The Hague. His case 
was speedily disposed of. Within ten days he was 
sentenced by the court to be beheaded as an exile 
who had returned to his country without permis- 
sion. The sentence was executed on December 15, 
1571. In expectation of a riot among the people, 
the authorities ordered him to be put to death 
before eight o'clock in the morning instead of at 
the hour first announced, late in the afternoon. By 
reason of some infirmity he was unable to kneel 



324 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



before the block, and hence his head was struck off 
while he was seated upon a chair. His body was 
honorably buried by some of his friends and fellow- 
Christians. 

This martyrdom is significant because it is the 
last one suffered in the cause of the Reformation 
for which the authorities of a Holland city or a 
court of Holland were responsible. Three and a 
half months after the death of Henry Schouten, on 
April 1, 1572, Brille was taken from the Spaniards, 
the spirit of liberty immediately seized upon the 
people of Holland, and everywhere Spanish gar- 
risons were banished from the cities and munici- 
pal governments that were friendly to Spain were 
deposed. In spite of Alva's armies, successful only 
in the case of Haarlem, this state of things became 
permanent. The tide of affairs, which had been 
taken at the flood, led on to fortune, and Protest- 
antism and civil liberty never occupied again a lower 
level. But upon the soil of the province of Hol- 
land a few more martyrdoms occurred, and remain 
to be noticed, which were suffered at the hands of 
Spanish invaders. 

The city of Leerdam, numbering scarcely four 
thousand people, is situated in the province of 
South Holland, near the borders of Gelderland. 
After the first burst of patriotic enthusiasm, in 
1572, the cities of Gelderland had soon yielded to 
Alva. Zutphen dared to resist slightly, and an 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 325 



awful punishment was meted out upon her; then 
all the province became again completely subdued. 
From Gelderland a force of the Spaniards crossed 
over into Holland and laid siege to the little city 
of Leerdam in the latter part of June, 1574. The 
enemy was then before Leyden, and this may have 
been meant as a manoeuvre having some bearing 
upon that more important siege. Eleven days suf- 
ficed to reduce the place, and the inhabitants capit- 
ulated. Their lives were guaranteed to them. No 
sooner had the Spaniards entered than the citizens 
were commanded to assemble at the town-hall. 
They expected a repetition of the Naarden horror ; 
this was not their fate, how r ever. They were com- 
manded, on pain of immediate massacre, to yield 
up their Reformed preacher, Joos de Jonge. They 
nobly hesitated, and seemed ready to undergo the 
frightful alternative rather than betray their be- 
loved pastor. But one among the inhabitants of 
the city, who hated all religion and every preacher 
of the gospel, had happened to see the pastor make 
his escape ; he pointed out to the Spaniards the pas- 
tor's whereabouts. The soldier sent to arrest De 
Jonge struck him on the head with the butt-end of 
his musket and brought him bleeding into the pres- 
ence of the Spanish colonel. At the same time 
the schoolmaster, Roger Joosten, and Quirinius de 
Palme, pastor of the village of Heukelom, in the 
vicinity, who had fled to Leerdam for refuge, were 



326 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



apprehended. They were all condemned to death 
and hanged early in July, 1574. 1 

The first city of Holland province which fur- 
nished a martyr to the Reformation was Woerden, 
the birthplace of John Pistorius; the city which 
was the scene of the last martyrdom within the 
province was that of Oudewater, a few miles direct- 
ly south of it. It has a population to-day of only 
twenty-four hundred souls. It became the scene 
of this martyrdom on the occasion of the last in- 
cursion of Spanish arms into this province. Mot- 
ley tells us that on July 19, 1575, "Oudewater, 
entirely unprepared for such an event, was besieged 
by Hierges, but the garrison and population, although 
weak, were brave. The town resisted eighteen days, 
and on the 7th of August was carried by assault, 
after which the usual horrors were fully practiced. 
Men, women and children were murdered in cold 
blood or obliged to purchase their lives by heavy 
ransoms. Almost every house in the city was 
burned to the ground." Oudewater was the birth- 
place of Arminius, who at this time was a boy of 
fifteen years ; he may have been away from home, 
however, during the siege and massacre, pursuing 
his studies at some university. At any rate, he 
was spared to be the occasion of bitter theological 
strife, and to give a name to a phase of theological 
thought. 

1 Groot Martdaarsboek, pp. 940, 941. 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 327 



Among those who were reserved for the payment 
of ransoms was the Reformed pastor, John Gelasius. 
He was brought to the hostile camp, his captors 
being ignorant of his quality or profession. He 
was required to pay five hundred guilders (two 
hundred dollars), and no doubt the payment of 
this sum — no small figure for those days — would 
have procured his liberation. A woman belonging 
to a religious order betrayed him, however, and he 
was forthwith dragged to the public gallows in the 
market-place. Here the monks and the priests, 
whose reign had ceased in Oudewater before the inva- 
sion, vented their spite upon the unhappy clergyman. 
He had seen his son murdered before his eyes and 
his wife severely wounded by the ruthless soldiery, 
but pity was a stranger to these people, and they 
annoyed him in every possible way. A crucifix 
was thrust almost into his face, and he was asked 
if he would not put his faith in that. At last the 
Seigneur de Hierges commanded an end to be made 
of this exhibition of obstinacy on the part of the 
heretic, and Gelasius expired upon the gallows. A 
year and a half later his body was decently buried 
in the church, beneath the pulpit. 1 

We call the martyrs noticed in the present chap- 
ter the last of Holland. This is undoubtedly true 
if by this name we understand only the provinces 
of North and South Holland, for foreign foe here 
1 Groot Martelaarsboek, p. 943. 



328 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



never again secured a foothold, and none of the 
cities came into the hands of Spain after 1575. In 
the other provinces of the Dutch republic war raged 
for many a year afterward, but even here, though 
many fortresses were held by the enemy and many 
suffered death in the cause of civil and religious 
liberty, it was rarely if ever again in the form of 
a martyrdom such as would claim our notice. At 
least, wi) have found no records of such cases that 
are worthy a detailed account. 

Now, in conclusion, we cannot but refer to one 
important circumstance. In these pages we have 
made particular mention of not more than about 
fifty martyrs in all. There have been many names, 
indeed, found by us in standard authorities which 
we have omitted to introduce into our series because 
history has devoted to them not much more than 
the record of their names or the dates of their death. 
Yet had we brought these names before our read- 
ers, the list of the martyrs of Holland would not 
have been increased very materially, after all ; the 
number would even then hardly have reached one 
hundred. It must be remembered, however, that 
this small number does not represent in the remot- 
est degree the multitudes who actually suffered 
martyrdom in the ISTetherland provinces. Perse- 
cutions raged more fiercely in the southern or Wal- 
loon provinces, and the records of martyrdom there 



MARTYRS OF HOLLAND. 



329 



present many more names than those of Holland. 
But, whether in the Dutch provinces or in those of 
the Walloons, the list is meagre, compared with the 
scores of thousands who were sacrificed. The pau- 
city of recorded names is explicable only from the 
very excessiveness of the number to be preserved. 

What, then, are some of the estimates in regard to 
the number of those who died in these provinces for 
the faith of the Reformation ? We will appreciate 
this the better if we compare the annals of persecu- 
tion elsewhere. Gibbon places the number put to 
death throughout the Roman empire during the last 
or Diocletian persecution at two thousand. What- 
ever fault w^e may find with his design for bringing 
the number down to that estimate, it will not be 
safe to dispute the fact. Torquemada sacrificed 
two thousand in Spain during his presidency of the 
Inquisition. In England eight hundred perished 
during the five years' reign of Bloody Mary. Our 
figures become amazingly larger as soon as we turn 
to the persecution of Protestants in the Netherlands. 
We begin, of course, with the reign of Charles V. 
" The number of Netherlanders," says Motley, " who 
were burned, strangled, beheaded or buried alive in 
obedience to his edicts has been placed as high as 
one hundred thousand by distinguished authorities, 
and has never been put at a lower mark than fifty 
thousand." How many more were butchered under 
Philip we dare not even estimate. One chronicler 



330 A CHURCH AND HER MARTYRS. 



records among the events of a single year that there 
was no city so small that there were not in it fifty, 
a hundred, two, and in some instances three, hun- 
dred put to death. 1 What else could we expect 
from such a decree as that promulgated in Febru- 
ary, 1568? It was Alva's boast when he retired 
from the country in 1573, after ruling it in the 
king's name for only six years, that he had put to 
death eighteen thousand six hundred heretics and 
rebels — synonymous terms in those days. It is no 
wonder that amid such wholesale butcheries only a 
few names could have been saved for record. 

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
Church." Was ever a Church more abundantly 
enriched than that of Holland? Well may she 
be devoutly proud of her list of martyrs. Surely 
this exceeding great cloud of witnesses bears testi- 
mony to God's special favor and the signal honor put 
upon her. As such there is no bound to the hopes 
of blessing and prosperity which may be cherished 
in regard to her. What has not God wrought for 
her in the past, with dangers external and conten- 
tions internal threatening her very life, yet ever 
bringing her forth unto a more determined stand 
for truth and vital godliness ! It is with confident 
hope that we may look to a happy issue, therefore, of 
the agitations and troubles that at this very hour 
are testing her faithfulness. 

1 Van Meteren, a very high authority on Dutch history. 



INDEX. 



Abjuration of Philip II., 100. 
Adriaans, Heynzoon, 276-284. 
Albigenses, 10, 146. 
Alkmaar, siege of, 71. 
Alva, duke of, 65, 66, 67 et pas- 
sim. 

Amsterdam, Classis of, 12, 13, 
122, 123. 

Anabaptists, " kings" of, 14, 
210 ; founders and first mar- 
tyr of, 209, 210; martyrs in 
Holland, 209, 215, 216. 

Antwerp, Convention of, 60, 61, 
69, 307 ; first arrests for heresy 
at, 154, 155; martyrdoms of 
Hollanders at, 255-257, 297, 
298 ; congregation of Reformed 
secretly protected by magis- 
trates, 261, 297. 

Apostolic succession in the Re- 
formed Church of Holland, 
313. 

Arminius, 15, 97, 99, 101, 326. 

Asylum offered by Holland to re- 
ligious sects made a reproach, 
17. 

Baptists, what they owe to Hol- 
land, 14. 

Barend of Utrecht, 281, 282, 283. 

Barneveld, John of, 101, 183. 

" Beggars" adopted as name of 
distinction by Dutch patriots, 
62. 

Betsey, domestic of Peter of Co- 
logne, 292-294. 



Bogerman, pastor at Leeuwar- 
den, president of the Great 
Synod of Dort, 102, 103. 

Bois-le-duc (or 'S Hertogenbosch), 
285, 288, 289 ; martyrs put to 
death at or near, 291. 295, 297, 
298. 

Breda, 292, 293. 

Bremen, Henry of Zutphen's suc- 
cess at, 163. 

Bres, Guy de, author of " Belgic 
Confession," 282. 

Brille first stronghold gained by 
patriots, 71, 219. 

Brummelkamp, Rev. A., one of 
the leaders in protest against 
State-Churchism, 136, 139. 

Brussels, market-place of, first 
martyrs of the Reformation 
martyred on, 156 ; women of, 
rescue Henry of Zutphen, 162, 

Calvin, John, on sacramental 
question, 46, 47 ; publishes the 
first system of theology among 
Protestants, 47. 

" Canons of Dort," 103, 104. 

Catechism, the Heidelberg, 41, 
45, 52-54. 

Catholic Holland, 287-290; mar- 
tyrdoms in, 290-301. 

Catholics, their part in the strug- 
gle for civil and religious lib- 
erty in Holland, 301-303. 

Charles V., emperor of Germany 
and lord of all the Netherlands, 

331 



332 



INDEX. 



153 ; issues first placard, 154 ; 
abdicates, 240. 

" Christian Reformed Church M 
the Separatist, or Free, Church 
of Holland, 132, 138, 139. 

" Classes," name to designate 
bodies representing a circle 
of several churches, 70. 

Classis of Amsterdam, 12, 13. 

" Coetus," 13, 123. 

Cologne, cathedral, 25-28 ; arch- 
bishopric of, included all Hol- 
land, 29. 

" Confer entie " formed in oppo- 
sition to Coetus, 124; controver- 
sies between, 124-127 ; healed, 
127. 

Congregationalism, John Robin- 
son the founder of, 13 ; Amer- 
ican, 14. 

"Consistory," name given to 
board of ministers, elders and 
deacons of a church, 70. 

Consubstantiation, 46. 

Convention, frequent, among 
Walloon Reformed churches, 
60 ; Antwerp, 60, 61, 69, 307; 
at New York City for the union 
of parties in Church, 127. 

Counsel, treatment of, when 
granted to martyrs, 272, 273. 

De Graef, John, 258-275. 
De G-reef. See Greef } Neeshen 
de. 

De Jonge, Joos, 325. 
Delft, 304, 305. 

Denmark, William of Zwolle in, 
193, 194; the Reformation in, 
194. 

Ditmarsum, Henry of Zutphen's 
labors at, 163 ; his martyrdom 
at, 165-168. 

"Doelen," the city, at Dort, 
where the Great Synod met, 
104-106. 

Dordrecht, or Dort, provincial 
Synod of, 72 ; first National 
or General Synod of, 72, 94- 



96: the Great Synod of, 92- 
111: city of, 92; history of, 
93 :' cathedral of, 107, 109; a 
sermon at, 110. 

"Echo," the, of H. Adriaan3, 
280. 

Egmond and Hoorne, 65, 66, 156, 

303. 

Electors of Germany, 36. 

Elector Palatine, 36; Rupert I. 
founds Heidelberg University, 
37; Louis the Pacific enter- 
tains Luther, 41, 43. See Fred- 
erick the Pious. 

Elizabeth of England, 114. 

Embden, Synod of, 70. 

Esch. Henry, and John Yoes, the 
first martyrs of the Reforma- 
tion, 157-160. 

Field-preaching, 63 ; near Haar- 
lem, 279. 

Flushing {D. Vlissingen), 113; 
connection with England, past 
and present, 114; a Presbyte- 
rian church founded at, 115; 
calls the Rev. Archibald Laid- 
lie, 116. 

Foreign-missionary work done 
by the Dutch, 121. 

Frederick III., elector-palatine, 
surnamed "the Pious," 45; 
sympathizes with the "Re- 
formed," 49 : his character, 
49, 50 : orders composition of 
Heidelberg Catechism, 51. 

Fredericks, Antony, martyred at 
Naarden, 202. 

Gansvoort, Wessel, 31. 

Gelasius, John, 327. 

" Generality," 258, 289. 

German Reformed Church in the 
United States, 12, 13. 

Gertrude, wife of William Hoo- 
gendoorn, probably the second 
woman of Holland who suf- 
fered martyrdom, 291. 



INDEX. 



333 



Gotnarus, 99. 

Goris of Bois-le-duc, 297, 298. 
Graef, John de. See Be Graef, 
John. 

Greef, Neesken de, an aged wo- 
man, persecuted after death, 
298, 299. 

Groote, Gerhard, 30. 

Grotius, Hugo, 305. 

Haarlem, siege of, 71, 276, 277 j 
compared with siege of Maas- 
tricht, 300 ; field-preaching 
near, 279. 

Hague, The, 177. 

Halewyn, Cornelius, fellow-pris- 
oner and martyr with Herman 
Jansen, 253-257. 

Heermans, Jacob. See Arminins. 

Heidelberg, city of, 35, 36 ; cas- 
tle, 37-40 ; university, 37 ; Lu- 
ther at, 41-44. See Catechism. 

Heiligerlee, battle of, 65 et pas- 
sim. 

Henry of Zutphen, 155, 161-168. 

Heusden, 136, 291 ; martyrdom 
at, 291, 292. 

Heymen, John, 281, 283. 

History, political and religious, 
of Dutch republic closely con- 
nected, 61. 

Holland, its relation to various 
Protestant denominations, 12- 
. 17. 

" Hollanders " and " Netherland- 

ers," 191. 
Hulst, 258, 259. 
Huss, John, 30. 

Image-breakings, 64, 65, 302. 
" Imitation of Christ," 193. 
Indulgences sold at Woerden, 
175. 

Inquisition, 145 ; Spanish, 146, 
147; papal, 148, 149; episco- 
pal, 149, 150; in the Nether- 
lands, 145-152: condemns the 
whole Netherland nation to 
death, 302. 



Inquisitor, the word, in Dutch, 
267. 

"Interim," the, of Charles V., 
229, 233. 

Jacob the Weaver, 291, 292. 

Jansen, Adrian, one of four con- 
verted priests, 314; martyred, 
320. 

Jansen, Herman, 248-257. 

Jansen, Sybrand, one of four 
converted priests, 314; mar- 
tyred, 319. 

Jemmingen, utter defeat of pa- 
triot army at, 66, 311. 

Jerome of Prague, 30. 

Johnson, Samuel, tirade against 
Dutch for giving refuge to all 
sects, 17. 

Jonge, Joos de, 325. 

Joosten, Roger, 325. 

Joris, David, 209, 211-213. 

Junius, Franciscus, 98. 

Kampen, city of, 131 ; theologi- 
cal seminary of Christian Re- 
formed Church at, 139 ; resi- 
dence of Rev. Prof. Brummel- 
kamp, 139. 

Kempis, Thomas a, 193. 

Ketel, Joriaan, 209-215. 

Laidlie, Rev. Archibald, called 
by Presbyterian church at 
Flushing, Holland, 116; by 
Collegiate Reformed Dutch 
church of New York City, 
116 ; preaches the first English 
sermon in Reformed Church of 
America, 117. 

Leerdam, siege of, and martyr- 
doms at, 325. 

Leyden, Presbyterians at, 15; 
siege of, 71, 75-82; situation 
of, 75; University of, 81, 82, 
89, 90. 

Livingston, Rev. John H., D. D., 
at Utrecht University, 85, 87, 
126; education in America, 



334 



INDEX. 



125 ; called to church of New 
York, 125 ; his labors to rec- 
oncile parties in the Reformed 
Church, 126, 127. 

Louvain, professors of, at trial 
of martyrs, 155, 182; Tapper, 
chancellor of University of, 
chief-inquisitor of Nether- 
lands, 238 ; Morula confined in 
a monastery at, 239 ; sympa- 
thy of citizens with him, 240. 

Luther, at Heidelberg, 41-44 ; 
position on sacrament, 46 ; 
monument to, at Worms, 56; 
visited by Pistorius, 173. 

Lutherans, origin of the sect, 46. 

Maastricht, 288, 299-301. 

Manner of treatment, 19-21. 

Mants, Felix, founder of Ana- 
baptist sect, and first of their 
martyrs, 210. 

Margaret of Austria, regent of 
the Netherlands, 155. 

Marriage among the Reformed, 
252. 

Martyrdom, difference in esti- 
mate of, 10 ; in Southern Hol- 
land, 285-303. 

Martyrs of the whole Church, 
9; Protestant, 10; of national 
churches, 11 ; first, of the Ref- 
ormation, 153, etc. ; number of 
the Dutch, 328-330. 

Marvell, Andrew, ridicules asy- 
lum of sects in Holland, 17. 

Maurice, Prince, 100, 101, 259, 
292. 

Mary, queen of Hungary, regent 
of the Netherlands, 226, 230, 
232, 239. 

Mechlin, supreme court of Neth- 
erlands at, and William of 
Zwolle tried, 195. 

Menno Simons, 14, 217. 

MeruIa,Angelus(orEngel Merle), 
219-247. 

Merula, William, nephew of mar- 
tyr, 230, 237, 242. 



Methodists, what they owe to 
Holland, 15. 

Monk, a, of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, 287, 288. 

Naarden, massacre of, 71, 201, 
300. 

National churches, 10, 11. 

" Netherlander " and " Holland- 
ers," 191. 

New York, church of, 116, 117; 
organized, 120 ; colonization 
of, as New Amsterdam, 121 ; 
consistory invites a conference 
on union, 126. 

Officers in Reformed Church, 
69, 70. 

Olevianus, one of the authors 
of Heidelberg Catechism, 51. 

Orange, William of, 65, 66; as- 
sassinated, 304, 305. 

Organization, of Reformed Ch. 
of Holland, 56-74; as a prin- 
ciple of the Church, 58. 

u Otto Henry" building, 44, 45. 

Oudewater, scene of last martyr- 
doms in Holland province, 
326 ; birthplace of Arminius, 
326. 

" Pacification of Ghent," 302. 

"Paradoxes" propounded by 
Luther at Heidelberg, 43. 

Peter of Cologne, 292-294. 

" Petition of the Nobles," 61, 
278, 301. 

Philip II., on abdication of 
Charles V., becomes king of 
Spain and lord of the Neth- 
erlands, 240 ; interferes in case 
of Merula, 241 ; use of his fa- 
ther's placards, 250, 251; his 
attitude toward Catholics of 
Holland, 302, 303. 

Pistorius, John, 169-184. 

Placards against the Reformed, 
197, 200, 248-251. 

Plymouth Rock, 14. 



INDEX. 



335 



Political situation, 56-67. 

Popular feeling against martyr- 
doms, 254, 256, 257, 274, 296, 
323. 

Presbyterian Church, what it 
owes to Holland, 15, 17 ; in 
Leyden, 15. 

Priesthood, ceremony of degra- 
dation from, 157, 316, 317. 

"Prison-Gate," the, at The 
Hague, described, 178,179 ; cell 
where Pistorius was confined, 
179, 180; Teeksen confined 
here, 206; Merula, 230, 231; 
four converted priests, 315. 

Protestantism in different coun- 
tries, 10, 11. 

" QuiA-AND-QuATENUS CONTRO- 
VERSY," the, 135, 136. 

Quirinius, pastor of Heukelom, 
325. 

Rationalism in the Church of 
Holland, 135 ; persecutes or- 
thodoxy, 137. 

Reformation, when and how it 
penetrated into Netherlands, 
59,- within the papal Church 
impossible, 246. 

" Reformers before the Refor- 
mation," 30. 

Reformed Church, origin of 
name, 48; in America, 120- 
129. 

Rhine, the, 35 ; in Holland, 130, 
131. 

Robinson, John, 13, 88. 
Rombouts, Michael, 295, 296. 

Sacramental Question, 45, 46, 
197. 

Savonarola, 30. 

Schinkel, Herman, 304-312. 

Scholte, Rev. H. P., one of the 
leaders in protest against 
State-Church, 136; conducts 
an emigration to the United 
States, 138. 



Schouten, Henry, 322-324. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 114, 115. 

Simonsen, Walter, one of four 
converted priests, 314; mar- 
tyred, 320. 

Soete, Francois, martyred at 
Hulst, 260. 

Sonnius, Franciscus, inquisitor, 
227, 231. 

State-Churchism, rise, 133; pro- 
test against, 136; later pro- 
test, 140, 141. 

St. John's church at Bois-le-duc, 
285-287. 

St. Servatius' church at Maas- 
tricht, 288. 

St. Walburg's church at Zut- 
phen, 161, 162. 

Synod, of Wesel, 69; of Emb- 
den, 70; of Dort (provincial), 
72 ; of Dort, first national, 
72, etc. 

Synod of Dort, the Great, 82- 
111; meets, 102; composition, 
102 ; Arminians excluded, 103 ; 
hall of meeting, 105 ; adjourn- 
ment, 107, 108. 

Synods, the early, 67-74. 

Tapper, Ruard, chief-inquisi- 
tor of the Netherlands, 230, 
231, 238, 240, 242. 

Teeksen, Teunis, 200, etc. 

Thorn, Lambert, one of four 
Antwerp monks arrested, 155 ; 
question as to his martyrdom, 
157. 

Titelman, Peter, inquisitor, 266 ; 

at the trial of John de Graef, 

267-271. 
Transubstantiation, 46. 
Travel teaching history, 20. 
Truce, the Twelve Years', 100. 

" Union of Utrecht," 100. 

Universities of Holland, 82-91. 

University of Leyden, origin of, 
81; founded, 82; the first 
Protestant, 82, 83; influence 



336 



INDEX. 



of, 86, 87, 89, 90 : of Franeker, 
83; influence of, 86, 87 ; of 
Groningen, 84; influence of, 
87 ; of Utrecht, 84, 85 ; influ- 
ence of, 87. 

Ursinus, one of the authors of 
Heidelberg Catechism, 51. 

Utrecht, 85. 

Valenciennes, revolt and siege 
of, 281, 282. 

Van Raaite, Rev. A. C, one of the 
leaders in the protest against 
State-Churchism, 136; con- 
ducts an emigration to the 
United States, 138. 

Voes, John, and Henry Esch, 
the first martyrs of the Refor- 
mation, 155, 157 ; their mar- 
tyrdom, 158, 159 ; its effects, 
159, 160. 

Vos, Arend, one of four con- 
verted priests, 314-317 ; mar- 
tyred, 319. 

Waldenses, 10, 146. 

Walloon provinces, 59 ; churches, 
earliest movements toward or- 
ganization, 60. 

Wendelmoet, the first woman 
martyred for the Reformed 
faith, 185-190. 

Wesel, 56 ; Synod of, 69, 70 ; a 
" city of refuge," 68 ; its situ- 
ation, 57, 68. 

Wesley s, the, 15. 



Wesselus (see, also, Gansvoort), 
Luther's testimony concern- 
ing, 32. 

Wickliffe, John, 30. 

Wilenstein, castle of, Merula's 
prison, 227. 

William I., king of Holland, 
134; his arbitrary assumption 
of authority over the Church, 
134-136. 

William of Zwolle, 191-199. 

Williamson, Dirk, 216, 217. 

Woerden, 169; birthplace of 
John Pistorius, 170 ; strong 
Lutheran sentiment at, 173 ; 
Wendelmoet confined in cita- 
del of, 186. 

" Wonderbook," the, of David 
Joris, 209, 212, 213. 

Wordsworth on Cologne cathe- 
dral, 26. 

Worms, monument to Luther at, 
56. 

"Worthies," "Scots," 12. 

Zeeland, province of, 112 ; 
"Flemish," 258. 

Zutphen, Henry of, 161-168 ; city 
of, 161; massacre of, 71, 300. 

Zwinglius, Ulricb, on the sac- 
ramental question, 46, 47 ; 
preaching of Reformation doc- 
trines independently of Lu- 
ther, 47; Felix Mants, the 
Anabaptist, martyred at his 
instance, 210. 



THE END. 



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